White House celebrates ‘Star Wars Day’ with AI image of muscular Trump wielding a lightsaber
White House celebrates ‘Star Wars Day’ with AI image of muscular Trump wielding a lightsaber
White House posted to X: 'Happy May the 4th to all, including the Radical Left Lunatics... You're not the Rebellion—you’re the Empire'
Greg Wehner By Greg Wehner Fox News
Published May 4, 2025 6:49pm EDT
The White House slammed the "radical left" in a social media post Sunday, showing an AI-generated image of President Donald Trump wielding a lightsaber in celebration of May the Fourth, or "Star Wars Day."
May 4 has long been regarded as a day to celebrate the iconic movie franchise as fans post on social media "May the Fourth be with you," an offshoot of the memorable Star Wars quote "May the force be with you."
On Sunday, the White House took an opportunity to celebrate the popular day with a post on X, while also taking digs at the Trump administration’s biggest critics.
"Happy May the 4th to all, including the Radical Left Lunatics who are fighting so hard to bring Sith Lords, Murderers, Drug Lords, Dangerous Prisoners, & well known MS-13 Gang Members, back into our Galaxy. You’re not the Rebellion—you’re the Empire," the White House wrote. "May the 4th be with you."
The post included an AI-generated image of Trump, who not only donned a Jedi robe and set of ripped arms but also held a red lightsaber. Behind him in the image were two bald eagles and two American flags.
The post received mixed reactions.
"Our efforts to FOIA info about a reported ‘Death Star’ have been stonewalled. And we pulled The Honorable Darth Vader as a judge when we sued so THAT will go nowhere," a user wrote.
Another user asked X’s AI feature Grok what the meaning of a red lightsaber is in Star Wars. Those who follow the science fiction franchise will remember Darth Vader, Kylo Ren and others associated with the dark side or Sith powers used a red lightsaber of some sort.
The Star Wars fandom website Wookieepedia explains that in the process of making a lightsaber, negative emotions like rage, hate, fear and pain would result in a red hue.
"How do you not have one nerd on staff to tell you what color lightsaber is good and what color is bad???" a user asked in reaction to the White House post.
But supporters of the president were quick to respond to reactions about the color of the lightsaber Trump is holding in the image.
"People arguing Trump using a red lightsaber equates him to evil…R ed is literally one of the three colors in our nation’s flag," a user wrote. "He is the leader of the Republican Party which is often ascribed the color Red. Context matters."
Still, the White House was not the only federal government agency to have fun with May the Fourth.
The U.S. Army Pacific posted an AI-generated image to social media of two soldiers with lightsabers – one holding red and the other holding a red, white and blue weapon – walking into combat at night, with the Milky Way Galaxy behind them.
"Across every galaxy – known and unknown – no force rivals our discipline, strength, and precision," the post read. "We don’t just defend the world. We protect the future. Victory is forged not found. May the 4th be with you."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-celebrates-star-wars-day-ai-image-muscular-trump-wielding-lightsaber
CHP - Truckee
11h ·
✨ May The 4th Be With You… and your driving skills!
So far, just rain and no snow over Donner Summit which is great, because that means we don’t have to worry about THESE guys! We already knew Stormtroopers can’t shoot straight… and now we know they can’t fly in the snow/rain either 💥
Roads are a little wet this May 4th, so take it easy out there. Stay alert, avoid distractions, and don’t follow the Dark Side (or too closely behind the car in front of you) Be safe, Rebels!
#CHPTruckee #MayThe4thBeWithYou #StormtrooperStruggles #NoZoomyOnTheSlickySlick #WaitForATowyTowy #UseTheBrakesLukeMaybeNotSoHard #TheForecastAwakens #SnowWarsEpisode80 #ThisIsTheWay #StayOnTarget #TrafficYouMustObey #JediMindDrive #EmpireStrikesOut #DriveSafeYouMust
https://www.facebook.com/chp.truckee/videos/1037146277811900
9. Interprovincial Works and Houses in Rome
304 §1. In the spirit of our fourth vow, the Society confirms its commitment to the interprovincial Roman works entrusted to it by the Holy See: the Pontifical Gregorian University and its associated institutes, the Pontifical Biblical Institute and the Pontifical Oriental Institute, as well as the Pontifical Russicum College, the Vatican Radio, and the Vatican Observatory, all of which are common works of the whole Society, placed directly under the superior general. Recognizing the very valuable service that these institutions have offered and continue to offer today, it calls upon major superiors who share Father General s responsibility for them to continue their help through subsidies and especially by training and offering professors and other personnel to them.
§2. Also recommended to the care of all the provinces are those other works or houses in Rome that render a service to the entire Society, such as the Historical Institute of the Society of Jesus and the international colleges of the Society in Rome.[142]
The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms
A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts
THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES
SAINT LOUIS, 1996
https://web.archive.org/web/20200211182223/https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf
Can. 666 In the use of means of social communication, necessary discretion is to be observed and those things are to be avoided which are harmful to one’s vocation and dangerous to the chastity of a consecrated person."
TITLE II. RELIGIOUS INSTITUTES (Cann. 607 - 709)
CODE OF CANON LAW
https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/cic_lib2-cann607-709_en.html
Head:
1. See Illness, mental
2. The superior general, head of the Society [666]"
page 463
The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms
A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts
THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES
SAINT LOUIS, 1996
https://web.archive.org/web/20200211182223/https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf
Revelation 13:18
New International Version
18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man.[a] That number is 666.
Read full chapter
Footnotes
Revelation 13:18 Or is humanity’s number
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2013%3A18&version=NIV
Civil Twilight:
Begins in the morning, or ends in the evening, when the geometric center of the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon. Therefore morning civil twilight begins when the geometric center of the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon, and ends at sunrise. Evening civil twilight begins at sunset, and ends when the geometric center of the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon. Under these conditions absent fog or other restrictions, the brightest stars and planets can be seen, the horizon and terrestrial objects can be discerned, and in many cases, artificial lighting is not needed. Civil Twilight is also known as Civil Dawn and Civil Dusk.
Nautical Twilight:
Begins in the morning, or ends in the evening, when the geometric center of the sun is 12 degrees below the horizon. In general, the term nautical twilight refers to sailors being able to take reliable readings via well known stars because the horizon is still visible, even under moonless conditions. Absent fog or other restrictions, outlines of terrestrial objects may still be discernible, but detailed outdoor activities are likely curtailed without artificial illumination. Nautical Twilight is also known as Nautical Dawn and Nautical Dusk.
Astronomical Twilight:
Begins in the morning, or ends in the evening, when the geometric center of the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon. In astronomical twilight, sky illumination is so faint that most casual observers would regard the sky as fully dark, especially under urban or suburban light pollution. Under astronomical twilight, the horizon is not discernible and moderately faint stars or planets can be observed with the naked eye under a non light polluted sky. But to test the limits of naked eye observations, the sun needs to be more than 18 degrees below the horizon. Point light sources such as stars and planets can be readily studied by astronomers under astronomical twilight. But diffuse light sources such as galaxies, nebula, and globular clusters need to be observed under a totally dark sky, again when the sun is more than 18 degrees below the horizon.
https://www.weather.gov/fsd/twilight
Alumbrado, (Spanish: “Enlightened”, ) Italian Illuminato, plural Illuminati, a follower of a mystical movement in Spain during the 16th and 17th centuries. Its adherents claimed that the human soul, having attained a certain degree of perfection, was permitted a vision of the divine and entered into direct communication with the Holy Spirit. From this state the soul could neither advance nor retrogress. Consequently, participation in the liturgy, good works, and observance of the exterior forms of religious life were unnecessary for those who had received the “light.” The Alumbrados came primarily from among the reformed Franciscans and the Jesuits, but their doctrines seem to have influenced all classes of people. The extravagant claims made for their visions and revelations caused them to be relentlessly persecuted. The Inquisition issued edicts against them on three occasions (1568, 1574, and 1623)."
https://www.britannica.com/event/Alumbrado
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Pali Buddha (“the Awakened One, the Enlightened One”), from buddha (“awakened, enlightened”), from Sanskrit बुद्ध (buddha, “awakened, enlightened”), past participle of बोधति (bodhati, “to wake, to awaken”). Distantly related to English bid and bede. Also cognate with Russian будить (buditʹ, “to wake up”)."
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Buddha
Gautama
surname of the Buddha, from Sanskrit Gotamah, properly a patronymic, literally "descendant of the greatest ox," from superlative of gauh "ox, bull, cow."
https://www.etymonline.com/word/buddha
BULL of Pope Boniface VIII promulgated November 18, 1302
For, according to the Blessed Dionysius, it is a law of the divinity that the lowest things reach the highest place by intermediaries. Then, according to the order of the universe, all things are not led back to order equally and immediately, but the lowest by the intermediary, and the inferior by the superior. Hence we must recognize the more clearly that spiritual power surpasses in dignity and in nobility any temporal power whatever, as spiritual things surpass the temporal. This we see very clearly also by the payment, benediction, and consecration of the tithes, but the acceptance of power itself and by the government even of things. For with truth as our witness, it belongs to spiritual power to establish the terrestrial power and to pass judgement if it has not been good. Thus is accomplished the prophecy of Jeremias concerning the Church and the ecclesiastical power: ‘Behold to-day I have placed you over nations, and over kingdoms‘ and the rest. Therefore, if the terrestrial power err, it will be judged by the spiritual power; but if a minor spiritual power err, it will be judged by a superior spiritual power; but if the highest power of all err, it can be judged only by God, and not by man, according to the testimony of the Apostle: ‘The spiritual man judgeth of all things and he himself is judged by no man‘ [1 Cor 2:15]. This authority, however, (though it has been given to man and is exercised by man), is not human but rather divine, granted to Peter by a divine word and reaffirmed to him (Peter) and his successors by the One Whom Peter confessed, the Lord saying to Peter himself, ‘Whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound also in Heaven‘ etc., [Mt 16:19]. Therefore whoever resists this power thus ordained by God, resists the ordinance of God [Rom 13:2], unless he invent like Manicheus two beginnings, which is false and judged by us heretical, since according to the testimony of Moses, it is not in the beginnings but in the beginning that God created heaven and earth [Gen 1:1]. Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff."
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/bon08/b8unam.htm
AI Overview
Astronomers estimate that there are about 200 billion trillion stars in the observable universe. That's 200 sextillion stars, or 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Explanation
To estimate the number of stars in the universe, astronomers:
Measure the color and brightness of starlight from our galaxy, the Milky Way
Use that information to estimate how many stars are in the Milky Way
Multiply the number of stars in the Milky Way by the number of galaxies in the universe
However, this is only a rough estimate because not all galaxies are the same. For example, spiral galaxies can have over a trillion stars, while giant elliptical galaxies can have 100 trillion stars.
Other ways to put it
The number of stars in the universe is so large that it's hard to imagine. It's about 10 times the number of cups of water in all the oceans of Earth.
Missions to learn more
The European Space Agency's Gaia mission is mapping about 1 billion stars in the Milky Way. The mission's data will help astronomers better understand the structure and evolution of our galaxy.
Generative AI is experimental.
CHAPTER SEVEN – SHABTAI, SHIMON AND SHARON – DESTROYING THE JEWS
ALM 1 - THE DEUTSCH DEVILS
Rabbi Marvin Antelman was right all along. Way back in 1974, he identified the source of all the evil against Jews and humanity but his message and style were too unaccessible to get through to anyone but the most advanced students of antisemitism. What he lacked most was simplicity, a common enough failure of thinkers decades in advance of their contemporaries. What he needed was someone to put out a Cliff's Notes simplified explanation of his thesis...and someone, without intention, just did. The name of the book is, 50 Jewish Messiahs by Jerry Rabow (Gefen Publishing, Jerusalem). It is an informative but shallow overview of just what the title says, but in its shallowness lies vital depth. We begin with Chapter 17, about the "most damaging messiah to the Jewish people," Shabbatai Zvi. First we'll read Rabow and then add commentary opening Rabbi Antelman's work to the wide world. Recall that there are various accepted English spellings for Shabtai Tzvi, and the Sabbataians. The spelling presented depends on the writer:
pp 91 - Shabbatai Zvi was born in Smyrna, Turkey on the ninth of Av, 1626. The ninth day of Av is the day of a triple tragedy for the Jewish nation. According to tradition, the First Temple, the Second Temple and Bar Kokhba's Betar fortress all fell on this day.
pp 93 - He changed the holiday celebrations and violated the dietary prohibitions. All of this followed from his declaration that the usual rules were inapplicable to messianic times.
pp 95 - He declared that the coming of the messianic era meant that the biblical commandments were no longer binding. He proclaimed that God now permitted everything. ** This is Rabbi Antelman's central assertion; that Shabbataism was the polar opposite of Judaism. That Shabbatai Zvi's program was to destroy all the tenets of the Torah and replace them with their opposites. Incredibly, more than half the Jews of the world at the time, believed he would be revealed as their promised messiah: **
pp 101 - Then he finally made the announcement for which the Jewish community had been waiting for 1600 years - he would begin the Redemption on the 15th day of the month of Sivan, June 18, 1666. ** There are many who will recognize the significance of the date. June is the sixth month, 18 divided by three is 6+6+6 and 1666 is clear enough. Either he knew what he was doing or the prophesies of the emergence of an evil false messiah or anti-Christ are right, and Shabbatai Zvi was him. **
pp 110 - Through all of this, Shabbatai continued to issue proclamations of the theological changes wrought by the coming of the messianic age. Shabbatai's new prayer was, "Praised be He who permits the forbidden." Since all things would be permitted in the age of the messiah, Shabbatai declared many of the old restrictions of the Torah no longer applicable. He abolished the laws concerning sexual relationships. He eventually declared that all of the thirty six major biblical sins were now permitted and instructed some of his followers that it was their duty to perform such sins in order to hasten the Redemption.
Shabtai Tzvi, Labor Zionism and the Holocaust
by Barry Chamish
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B66Pc9x2hkIrV2Y3QWxPbkpKYWc/view?usp=sharing&resourcekey=0-5ak831cRNQohyyjZYfFKvw
Nova music festival massacre
On 7 October 2023, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian nationalist organization Hamas, initiated a sudden attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip. As part of the attack, 364 individuals, mostly civilians, were killed and many more wounded at the Supernova Sukkot Gathering, an open-air music festival during the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret near kibbutz Re'im. Hamas also took 40 people hostage, and men and women were reportedly subject to sexual and gender-based violence.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_music_festival_massacre
A nova (pl. novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. All observed novae involve white dwarfs in close binary systems, but causes of the dramatic appearance of a nova vary, depending on the circumstances of the two progenitor stars. The main sub-classes of novae are classical novae, recurrent novae (RNe), and dwarf novae. They are all considered to be cataclysmic variable stars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova
Revelation 16:8
1599 Geneva Bible
8 [a]And the fourth Angel poured out his vial on the sun, and it was given to him to torment men with heat of fire,
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2016%3A8-10&version=GNV
In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and interact with each other. On distance scales larger than the string scale, a string acts like a particle, with its mass, charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string. In string theory, one of the many vibrational states of the string corresponds to the graviton, a quantum mechanical particle that carries the gravitational force. Thus, string theory is a theory of quantum gravity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory
A chain reaction is a sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions to take place. In a chain reaction, positive feedback leads to a self-amplifying chain of events.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_reaction
2 Peter 3:10
1599 Geneva Bible
10 [a]But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a [b]noise, and the elements shall melt with heat, and the earth with the works that are therein shall be burnt up.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Peter%203%3A10&version=GNV
https://www.facebook.com/billy.dunn.50767/posts/pfbid02pZjzLsA4PRW9ph5GMWFVhCWisN73Av74Qon3r7z6mYUAjeYq1Vr4ks74eHJvraxMl
2030-2031 APPARITION CHARACTERISTICS
Another general rule for predicting oppositions of Mars is from the following: the planet has an approximate 15.8-year periodic opposition cycle, which consists of three or four Aphelic oppositions and three consecutive Perihelic oppositions. Perihelic oppositions are also called "favorable" because the Earth and Mars come closest to each other on those occasions. We sometimes refer to this as the seven Martian synodic periods. This cycle is repeated every 79 years (± 4 to 5 days) and, if one were to live long enough, one would see this cycle nearly replicated in approximately 284 years. The 2031 Mars apparition is considered Transitional (between Aphelic and Perihelic) because the orbital longitude at opposition will be 68.4° from the aphelion longitude of 70° Ls and 111.6° Ls from perihelion (250° Ls).
NOTE: Ls is the planetocentric longitude of the Sun along the ecliptic of Mars’ sky. 0° Ls is defined as that point where the Sun crosses the Martian celestial equator from south to north, that is the planet’s northern hemisphere vernal equinox. The other Ls values that define the beginnings of Martian northern hemisphere seasons are: summer, 90° Ls; autumn, 180° Ls; and winter, 270° Ls. For Mars’ southern hemisphere these values represent the opposite seasons. Distance (A.U.) - Distance from Earth to Mars in astronomical units, where one (1) A.U. equals 92,955,807.267 miles or 149,597,870.691 km.
Opposition occurs 11 months after conjunction when Mars is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. At that time, the two planets will lie nearly in a straight line with respect to the Sun, or five weeks after retrogression begins. Opposition will occur at 1157 UT on May 04, 2031 (138.4° Ls) with an apparent planetary disk diameter of 16.7 arcsec. Mars will remain visible for more than twelve months after opposition and then become lost in the glare of the Sun around May 31, 2032 as it approaches the next conjunction (July 11, 2032). The cycle is complete in 780 Earth days.
Closest approach occurs at 0350 UT on May 12, 2031 (142.1° Ls) with an apparent planetary disk diameter of 16.9 at a distance of 0.5533578 astronomical units (AU) or 51,437,823 miles (82,781,152 km). During closest approach in 2031 the apparent diameter of Mars will be 2.4 arcsec larger than it was at the same period in 2029; however, it will be 17.1 degrees lower in the sky - not quite as good for observing the Red Planet for observers in the northern hemisphere. It should also be noted that closest approach between Earth and Mars is not necessarily coincident with the time of opposition but varies by as much as two weeks.
https://www.alpo-astronomy.org/jbeish/2031_MARS.htm
The Red Jews (German: Rote Juden), a legendary Jewish nation, appear in vernacular sources in Germany during the medieval era, from the 13th to the 15th centuries. These texts portray the Red Jews as an epochal threat to Christendom, one which would invade Europe during the tribulations leading to the end of the world.
A variant counter-story became an element of Yiddish folklore in the 15th century at the latest. Here the red Jews, the royte yidn, were lost tribes and poised to protect the Yiddish Jews from Christian violence. The earliest known references to the counter-story are in German-language reminiscences of Jewish life by converts to Christianity beginning in 1508. The Red Jews are a popular theme in later Yiddish literature, undergoing various mutations—including ultimately e.g. late 19th century and 20th century Zionist versions as a heroic warrior diaspora.
Andrew Gow studied the original German language texts and concluded that the legend of the Red Jews conflated three separate traditions: the biblical prophetic references to Gog and Magog, the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, and an episode from the Alexander Romance (3rd century AD), in which Alexander the Great encloses a race of heathens behind a great wall in the Caucasus. These traditions had some overlap already; Gog and Magog are among the nations trapped behind the wall in the Alexander Romance, and the only ones named in the version of the story appearing in Quran Sura al-Kahf (The Cave) 18:89, while the 14th-century work The Travels of Sir John Mandeville explicitly associates the confined nations with the Ten Lost Tribes.
Many pamphlets circulated interpreting such events as the rise of Turkish power in the context of the legendary Red Jews. Both Martin Bucer and Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560), for example, claimed that Muslims were the Red Jews.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Jews
https://www.facebook.com/4williamdunn/posts/pfbid0kJcwyq1jacMRDYkXDUuuj41iWQNwAvYDqQs7VcgZge2hfCz66ye6BTWw8bTMoRk7l
What is the significance of a red heifer in the Bible?
Answer
It seems that every few years, a red heifer (red cow) is born in Israel, and it results in some people thinking that the return of Jesus is near. Why is this? What does a red heifer have to do with the end times? Before we explore that question directly, it is important to understand the significance of a red heifer in the Bible.
To meet the requirements of the Old Testament law, a red heifer was needed to help accomplish the purification of the Israelites from uncleanness—specifically, the ashes of a red heifer were needed (see Numbers 19). Because red heifer ashes were necessary for the purification rites held at the temple, many have regarded the appearance of a red heifer today as heralding the construction of the third temple and the return of Christ.
According to rabbinical tradition, there have been nine red heifers sacrificed since Moses’ time. Since the destruction of the second temple, no red heifers have been slaughtered. The rabbi Maimonides (1135—1204) taught that the tenth red heifer would be sacrificed by the Messiah Himself (Parah Adumah, ch. 3, § 4). The Temple Institute, a group advocating the construction of a third temple, reports that five flawless red heifers from Texas arrived in Israel on September 15, 2022 (https://templeinstitute.org, accessed 9/22/22). Many people view this event as a fulfilment of prophecy, since the acquisition of a red heifer is a major step forward in plans for a new temple.
The Mosaic Law specified that the red heifer was to be “without defect or blemish” and to have never borne a yoke (Numbers 19:2). The sacrifice of the red heifer was unique in the law in that it used a female animal, it was sacrificed away from the entrance to the tabernacle, and it was the only sacrifice in which the color of the animal was specified.
The slaughtering of a red heifer is described in Numbers 19:1–10. Eleazar the priest was to oversee the ritual outside the camp of the Israelites. After the animal was killed, Eleazar was to sprinkle some of its blood toward the front of the tabernacle seven times (verse 4). Then he left camp again and oversaw the burning of the carcass of the red heifer (verse 5). As the red heifer burned, the priest was to add “some cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet wool” to the fire (verse 6).
The ashes of the red heifer were then collected and stored “in a ceremonially clean place outside the camp.” The ashes were used “in the water of cleansing; it is for purification from sin” (Numbers 19:9). The law goes on to detail when and how the ashes of the red heifer were used in purifying those who came in contact with a dead body: “Whoever touches a human corpse will be unclean for seven days. They must purify themselves with the water on the third day and on the seventh day; then they will be clean” (verses 11–12). The purification process involved the ashes of the red heifer in this way: “Put some ashes from the burned purification offering into a jar and pour fresh water over them. Then a man who is ceremonially clean is to take some hyssop, dip it in the water and sprinkle . . . anyone who has touched a human bone or a grave or anyone who has been killed or anyone who has died a natural death” (verses 17–18).
The commands concerning the red heifer were yet another foreshadowing of the sacrifice of Christ for believers’ sin. The Lord Jesus was “without blemish,” just as the red heifer was to be. As the heifer was sacrificed “outside the camp” (Numbers 19:3), Jesus was crucified outside of Jerusalem (Hebrews 13:11–12). And, just as the ashes of the red heifer cleansed people from the contamination of death, so the sacrifice of Christ saves us from the penalty and corruption of death.
The red heifer ritual as established in the Mosaic Law was fairly simple; in the interval since that time, Judaism has added many standards and extra criteria. Talmudic tradition speaks of the type of rope the red heifer was to be bound with, the direction it was to face when being slaughtered, the words spoken by the priest, the wearing of sandals during the ritual, etc. The rabbinical rules listed many things that would disqualify a red heifer from being sacrificed: if she had been ridden or leaned on, if she had a garment placed over her, if a bird had rested on her, and if she had two black or white hairs, among many other conditions not found in the biblical text.
According to the futurist timeline of eschatology, there will indeed be a third temple of God in Jerusalem. Jesus prophesied a desecration of the temple to occur during the tribulation (Matthew 24:15; cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:4); for that to happen, there obviously will need to be a temple. Assuming those who dedicate the end-times temple follow Jewish law, they will need the ashes of a red heifer, mixed with water, for the ceremonial cleansing. If a blemish-free red heifer has truly been found and is in Israel, that could be one more piece falling into place for the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
Must a red heifer be found before the rapture occurs? No, Jesus could return to receive His own at any moment. The rapture is not contingent on the presence of any particular cow. Must a red heifer be found before the temple is rebuilt? Not necessarily, although temple advocates certainly want one for ceremonial purposes. Are animal sacrifices of any type required today? No, Jesus fulfilled all the requirements of the law, and His sacrifice provides true forgiveness and life eternal.
Scripture explicitly contrasts the red heifer ceremony with the greater sacrifice of Christ: “The ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!” (Hebrews 9:13–14).
https://www.gotquestions.org/red-heifer.html
The Origin of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Doctrine
June 11, 2022
By Mark Williams.
How did the pretribulation doctrine come about? A brief rundown would go something like this:
In 1591 a Jesuit priest named Francisco Ribera wrote a 500-page commentary on the grand points of Babylon and the antichrist, the object being to set aside the Protestant teaching that the Papacy is the antichrist. In his commentary, he assigned the first chapters of Revelation to the first century. The rest he restricted to a literal three and a half years at the end of time, BEFORE the resurrection. He taught that the Jewish temple would be rebuilt by a single individual antichrist that would abolish the Christian religion, deny Christ, pretend to be God, and conquer the world. Thus was laid the foundation for Dispensationalism.
In 1812 another Jesuit priest, named Emmanuel Lacunza, started teaching that there would be a 45-day tribulation period, AFTER Christ’s coming.
In 1826 Edward Irving translated Lacunza’s book and published it in 1827. Sometime after that, Irving started to teach a three-and-a-half-year tribulation after Christ’s coming.
In 1830, a man named John Darby of the Plymouth Brethren started teaching a seven-year tribulation period. He came to America seven times to promote his teaching. When George Muller of Bristol came up against the Dispensationalist doctrines of the Brethren movement, he severed all connection with it. “The time came,” he said, “when I had to either part from my Bible or part from John Darby. I chose to keep my precious Bible.”
So in 1812, we see the teaching of a 45-day tribulation after the rapture.
Around 1827 Edward Irving taught a three and a-half-year tribulation after the rapture. Then in 1830, the final turn to a seven-year tribulation after the rapture. Others picked up on this new doctrine and added to it.
In 1909, C. I. Scofield published the Scofield Reference Bible. His dispensational notes were mixed in with the verses of the Bible so well that if you didn’t know better, you would think they were part of the Holy Scriptures. Over two million copies of his Bible were sold with this new dispensational teaching. Scofield, although not a Plymouth Brethren, was a devoted disciple of John Darby.
After that, W. E. Blackstone wrote a book titled Jesus Is Coming Again. A millionaire financed sending several hundred thousand copies of this book to missionaries throughout the world.
After Israel became a nation in 1948, prophecy teachers sprung up like wildfire, teaching that the Second Coming would happen approximately forty years after Israel became a nation. They got this belief from misinterpreting the word “generation” in Matthew 24. Hundreds of books were written on this subject. People learned about this new doctrine, not from the Bible, but from these so-called prophecy books.
Today Dispensationalism has become the generally accepted belief of the Fundamentalist wing of popular Protestantism.
In his tract, “Who is the Antichrist?” a former Catholic priest, Joseph Zacchello, says: “The Jesuits were the first ones to introduce a new theory in order to divert men’s minds from perceiving the fulfillment of the prophecies of the antichrist in the papal church. The Jesuit Ribera brought out the futuristic system, which asserts that the antichrist is yet to appear.” And to this statement, he adds: “Protestants who advocate the futuristic system are pleasing the pope and are playing into the hands of Rome.”
The teaching that the Church is to be raptured to heaven just prior to a time called the great tribulation was not known prior to the 1800s. It’s amazing with all the writings left to us from early Christians on the rapture, all agreed that if there is going to be a tribulation at the end of time, the Church would go through it. Since no voice spoke out in favor of a pre-tribulation rapture, the only conclusion possible is that the Church did not teach this in the beginning and that it should not be teaching it now.
Conclusion
This material was condensed down from hundreds of pages of notes just to give you a quick insight into the problem we are facing today. If we continue to curl up into a ball and keep our mouths shut because somebody might get their feelings hurt, the original truth that was taught by Jesus and his apostles, will one day vanish.
I’m not saying that we should go out and create war with those who disagree, but we should, in a loving manner, spread the whole truth of the Gospel. And if it were only on the last days, it would be easier for me to keep my mouth shut. But Satan has caused Christians to pervert his truth in dozens of chapters throughout the Bible.
It’s sad to think that a large part of God’s Church teaches that the Abrahamic covenant is yet to be fulfilled and yet the Bible teaches it has been fulfilled to the very letter. It’s sad to see Christians teaching that Jesus Christ isn’t reigning now when a simple study of the Bible shows he is and that Jesus is reigning from David’s throne now just as the Scriptures foretold. It’s sad to see Christians misleading the world into believing that after Christ comes back, there will still be a chance for salvation, and again, the Bible says no such thing. Friends, the Bible warns against believing in false doctrine, and yet to many, it’s not a problem. I believe that Christians can come together with a more unified understanding of the Scriptures, but only if we take the time to study amongst ourselves and not be afraid to ask questions or get our feelings hurt. Our goal should be stamping out false doctrine and becoming unified in Christ Jesus. Remember, we are commanded to study to show ourselves approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Now if you still disagree with my notes, I would love to hear what you have to say and I promise to keep an open and honest heart. I for one do not want to stand face to face with Jesus only to find out that I’ve been deceived my whole life and neither should you.
Download a PDF file of this article.
https://www.jamesjpn.net/basic-bible/the-origin-of-the-pre-tribulation-rapture-doctrine/?print=pdf
https://www.jamesjpn.net/basic-bible/the-origin-of-the-pre-tribulation-rapture-doctrine/
Matthew 24
1599 Geneva Bible
24 2 The destruction of the Temple. 4 The signs of Christ’s coming. 12 Iniquity. 23 False Christs. 29 The signs of the end of the world. 31 The Angels. 32 The fig tree. 37 The days of Noah. 42 We must watch. 45 The servant.
1 And Jesus went out, and departed from the Temple, and his disciples came to him, to show him the building of the Temple.
2 [a]And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, there shall not be here left a stone upon a stone, that shall not be cast down.
3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, his disciples came unto him apart, saying, Tell us when these things shall be, and what sign shall be of thy coming, and of the end of the world.
4 [b]And Jesus answered, and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
5 For many shall come in my Name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many.
6 And ye shall hear of wars, and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the [c]end is not yet.
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and realm against realm, and there shall be famine, and pestilence, and earthquakes in [d]divers places.
8 All these are but the beginning of [e]sorrows.
9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you, and ye shall be hated of all nations for my Name’s sake.
10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
11 And many false prophets shall arise, and shall deceive many.
12 And because iniquity shall be increased, the love of many shall be cold.
13 [f]But he that endureth to the end, he shall be saved.
14 And this [g]Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached through the whole [h]world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end come.
15 ¶ [i]When ye therefore shall see the [j]abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the Prophet, set in the holy place (let him that readeth consider it.)
16 Then let them which be in Judea, flee into the mountains.
17 Let him which is on the housetop, not come down to fetch anything out of his house.
18 And he that is in the field, let not him return back to fetch his [k]clothes.
19 And woe shall be to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days.
20 But pray that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the [l]Sabbath day.
21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the world to this time, nor shall be.
22 And except [m]those days should be shortened, there should no [n]flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.
23 Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there, believe it not.
24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and [o]shall show great signs and wonders, so that if it were possible, they should deceive the very elect.
25 Behold, I have told you before.
26 Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert, go not forth: Behold, he is in the secret places, believe it not.
27 For as the lightning cometh out of the East, and is seen into the West, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
28 [p]For wheresoever a dead [q]carcass is, thither will the Eagles be gathered together.
29 [r]And immediately after the tribulations of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
30 And then shall appear the [s]sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the [t]kindreds of the earth [u]mourn, and they shall see the Son of man [v]come in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 And he shall send his Angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect, from the [w]four winds, and from the one end of the heavens unto the other.
32 [x]Now learn the parable of the fig tree: when her bough is yet [y]tender, and it putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near.
33 So likewise ye, when ye see all these things, know that the kingdom of God is near, even at the doors.
34 Verily I say unto you, this [z]generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.
35 [aa]Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.
36 [ab]But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no not the Angels of heaven, but my father only.
37 But as the days of Noah were, so likewise shall the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days before the flood, they did [ac]eat and drink, marry, and give in marriage, unto the day that Noah entered into the Ark,
39 And knew nothing, till the flood came, and took them all away, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
40 [ad]Then two shall be in the fields, the one shall be received, and the other shall be refused.
41 [ae]Two women shall be grinding at the mill: the one shall be received, and the other shall be refused.
42 [af]Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your master will come.
43 Of this be sure, that if the good man of the house knew at what watch the thief would come, he would surely watch, and not suffer his house to be dug through.
44 Therefore be ye also ready: for in the hour that ye think not, will the Son of man come.
45 Who then is a faithful servant and wise, whom his master hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in season?
46 Blessed is that servant, whom his master when he cometh, shall find so doing.
47 Verily I say unto you, he shall make him ruler over all his goods.
48 But if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My master doth defer his coming,
49 And begin to smite his fellows, and to eat, and to drink with the drunken,
50 That servant’s master will come in a day, when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of,
51 And will [ag]cut him off, and give him his portion with hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Footnotes
Matthew 24:2 The destruction of the city, and especially of the Temple is foretold.
Matthew 24:4 The Church shall have a continual conflict with infinite miseries and offences, and that more is, with false prophets, until the day of victory and triumph cometh.
Matthew 24:6 That is, when those things are fulfilled, yet the end shall not come.
Matthew 24:7 Everywhere.
Matthew 24:8 Word for word, of great torments, like unto women in travail.
Matthew 24:13 The Gospel shall be spread abroad, rage the devil never so much: and they which do constantly believe, shall be saved.
Matthew 24:14 Joyful tidings of the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 24:14 Through all that part that is dwelt in.
Matthew 24:15 The Kingdom of Christ shall not be abolished when the city of Jerusalem is utterly destroyed, but shall be stretched out even to the end of the world.
Matthew 24:15 The abomination of desolation, that is to say, which all men detest and cannot abide, by reason of the foul and shameful filthiness of it: and he speaketh of the idols that were set up in the Temple, or as others think, he meant the morning of the doctrine in the Church.
Matthew 24:18 This betokeneth the great fear that shall be.
Matthew 24:20 It was not lawful to take a journey on the Sabbath day; Josephus, book 13.
Matthew 24:22 Those things which befell the people of the Jews, in the 34 years, when as the whole land was wasted, and at length the city of Jerusalem taken, and both it and their Temple destroyed, are mixed with those which shall come to pass before the last coming of our Lord.
Matthew 24:22 The whole nation should utterly be destroyed: and this word Flesh is by a figure taken for man, as the Hebrews used to speak.
Matthew 24:24 Shall openly lay forth great signs for men to behold.
Matthew 24:28 The only remedy against the furious rage of the world, is to be gathered and joined to Christ.
Matthew 24:28 Christ, who will come with speed and his presence will be with a majesty to whom all shall flock even as Eagles.
Matthew 24:29 Everlasting damnation shall be the end of the security of the wicked, and everlasting bliss, of the miseries of the godly.
Matthew 24:30 The exceeding glory and majesty, which shall bear witness, that Christ the Lord of heaven and earth draweth near to judge the world.
Matthew 24:30 All nations: and he alludeth to the dispersion which we read of, Gen. 10 and 11, or to the dividing of the people of Israel.
Matthew 24:30 They shall be in such sorrow, that they shall strike themselves: and it is transferred to the mourning.
Matthew 24:30 Sitting upon the clouds, as he was taken up into heaven.
Matthew 24:31 From the four quarters of the world.
Matthew 24:32 If God hath prescribed a certain order to nature, much more hath he done so to his eternal judgments, but the wicked understand it not, or rather make a mock at it: but the godly do mark it, and wait for it.
Matthew 24:32 When his tenderness showeth that the sap which is the life of the tree, is come from the root into the bark.
Matthew 24:34 This age: this word generation or Age, being used for the men of this age.
Matthew 24:35 The Lord doth now begin the judgment, which he will make an end of in the latter day.
Matthew 24:36 It is sufficient for us to know that God hath appointed a latter day for the restoring of all things, but when it shall be, it is hidden from us all, for our profit, that we may be so much the more watchful, that we be not taken as they were in old time in the flood.
Matthew 24:38 The word which the Evangelist useth, expresseth the matter more fully than ours doth: for it is a word which is proper to brute beasts: and his meaning is, that in those days men shall be given to their bellies like unto brute beasts: for otherwise it is no fault to eat and drink.
Matthew 24:40 Against them that persuade themselves that God will be merciful to all men, and do by that means give over themselves to sin, that they may in the meanwhile live in pleasure void of all care.
Matthew 24:41 The Greek women and the Barbarians did grind and bake. (Plutarch, book Problem)
Matthew 24:42 An example of the horrible carelessness of men in those things whereof they ought to be most careful.
Matthew 24:51 To wit, from the rest, or will cut him into two parts, which was a most cruel kind of punishment, wherewith as Justin Martyr witnesseth, Isaiah the Prophet was executed by the Jews: the like kind of punishment we read of, 1 Sam. 15:33 and Dan. 3:29.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2024&version=GNV
Police Impersonation Arrest of Jefrey Scott Schultz | New Footage
Real World Police
Jul 14, 2021 MARIETTA
Over the last couple of years, Real World Police has made minor celebrities of a number of people. Jeremy Dewitte is probably the most well known, but there are many others — even in the police impersonation category.* Two years ago, Real World Police introduced you to Jefrey Scott Schultz (yes, one-f-Jef), who starred in 'Cringeworthy Police Impersonator Jefrey Scott Schultz' and 'Arrest of Police Impersonator Jefrey Scott Schultz.' Those videos, about 20 minutes in total, are recapped at the start of this video, for those viewers who haven't seen them.
The original Schultz arrest video is notable for its second half, which presented some of Schultz's personnel records, including a couple of citizen complaints that had been filed against him. Also shown was a one-page document revealing that Schultz had been employed by more than a half-dozen law enforcement agencies in a very short period of time, most for less than one year. He had been fired from his most recent gig with Hapeville Police Department back in 2007.
At the time we posted that video, that was most of the information we had, and as far as anyone knew, our publishing those videos put the story to bed. In reality, it didn't, and the investigation into Schultz's history continued up to the present. We have interviewed some of Schultz's former employees and have spoken with a former coworker, a former chief of police, a city council member, and a number of others who insisted on anonymity even in their title. It's time to share some of what we have learned.
At 4:06 in the Schultz arrest video, Corporal Lowe waves some papers in the air, stating "I've got your POST history right here, bro." With complete respect for Corporal Lowe, there is no way that was true.
Because we have Schultz's POST history.
And it's more than 1,300 pages long.
A significant subset of those 1,300 pages consists of citizen, coworker, management, and even elected official complaints against Jefrey. As referenced in this video, Schultz actually managed to get [seriously] investigated for impersonating a police officer while actually employed as a police officer. Not even Jeremy Dewitte can do that.
From the 1,300+ pages we selected some to share in this video. There are, of course, many more, and some of those are worth your time. For the true story of the police officer who was investigated for impersonating a police officer, stop by the Real World Police subreddit later this week.
Remarkably, there is even more to this story. Multiple certificate revocation actions and frivolous lawsuits filed by Schultz seemingly in retaliation for his terminations. At one point, he even sued Georgia POST. And guess who has a current action against his certification?
Nailed it.
Hop onboard.
Side note: Georgia law is very different from Florida in relation to police impersonation. Florida law requires that the person pretending to be an officer "...takes upon himself or herself to act as such, or to require any other person to aid or assist him or her in a matter pertaining to the duty of any such officer." That would be a hard sell for Schultz at the traffic stop.
Georgia law, on the other hand, seems clearly applicable: "A person who falsely holds himself out as a peace officer or other public officer or employee with intent to mislead another into believing that he is actually such officer commits the offense of impersonating an officer" O.G.C.A. 16-10-23.
*Dewitte may be the most well known, but he is hardly the most significant.
~~~
/r/realworldpolice
@realworldpolice
~~~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U9bEpRX7wc
Castel Sant'Angelo
Rome, Italy
Roman Emperor Hadrian (76-138AD) was, as just about everyone would agree, a big deal. He's mostly remembered today for having been responsible for Hadrian's Wall in Great Britain, which was begun in 122AD and which marked the northern boundary of Rome's dominion on that rocky isle.
By most accounts Hadrian did a pretty good job as Roman Emperor (he ruled from 117 to 138AD), but most people die at one point or another, and Hadrian prepared for this possibility by arranging for a mausoleum to be built for he and his family to reside into eternity. Just in case they did actually die. This Hadrianum was built from 123 to 129AD, and was the repository of Hadrian's ashes upon his death in 138AD.
Though the necessity of defending a mausoleum seems strange, the Aurelian Wall was added to the Hadrianum in 271, which defended its "strategic southern flank." This big, defensible mausoleum would go on to also hold the earthly remains of the succeeding seven Roman Emperors.
Some of Hadrian might still be there, brushed into a corner somewhere, but for the most part his and his successors' ashes were scattered by the Visigoths, when Alaric (370-410) led them in the Sack of Rome in 410...so much for the Aurelian Wall!
Legend has it that the Archangel Michael appeared atop the mausoleum in 590, sheathing his sword. This supposedly announced the end of Rome's latest bout with the Bubonic Plague in 590, and 'twas from this "event" that this fort got its name. A marble statue of Michael and his plague-vanquishing sword was perched atop the Castel in 1536, then replaced with a bronze sculpture of the same subject in 1753.
By 1309, the Papacy had been doing things other than bellowing how awesome Rome was, so the Pope was kicked out of the Vatican and took up residence in Avignon, France. When as much Avignonian fun was had as could be had, Pope Gregory XI (1329-1378) returned to Rome in 1377 and...died almost immediately. His successor, Urban VI (1318-1389), had enough troubles in reestablishing the Papacy in Rome that he figured that he deserved his own proper fort, and Castel Sant'Angelo was finally born.
Conveniently close to the Vatican, the Castel Sant'Angelo had defensive fortifications built all around it by the 14th century, and a covered walkway was built leading to St. Peter's Basilica, so the Pope could stroll unmolested to his private fort. At exactly what point the Castel gained its current starrish shape seems a bit murky, but it was strong enough to protect Pope Clement VII from Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500-1558)'s Landsknecht (German mercenary pikemen) in yet another Sack of Rome in 1527.
Pope Paul III (1468-1549) had a sumptuous Papal apartment built in the Castel, just in case he'd have to sit through another Holy Papal Siege.
Sant'Angelo's days as an operable fort were over, but as we all know starforts make excellent jails, and the Castel was used as a Papal prison for the next 300+ years. Among those who had the honor of being imprisoned at the Castel was Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), an Italian friar who was convicted of heresy for his belief that the sun was a star, and other outlandishly dangerous theories. Fortunately, Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600 for his transgressions, and the world continued safe in the knowledge that the sun is in fact a magical dolphin.
The slightly overdecorated corridor that leads to the Papal apartments
The fort was decommissioned in 1901 and made into a museum. The Castel Sant'Angelo features prominently in Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)'s opera Tosca, which takes place in Rome in 1800: The title character, Gloria Tosca, flings herself from its battlements in the final act. The Castel also makes appearances in two of the Assassin's Creed video games. In 1980, American rock bands Kiss and the Ramones performed at the Castel.
I also have it on good authority that one can visit the Castel Sant'Angelo and have absolutely no idea that one is in the presence of a starfort: My dad visited the mausoleum in 2008, at which time, he insists, it obviously wasn't a starfort yet.
http://www.starforts.com/santangelo.html
"God is dead" (German: Gott ist tot [ɡɔt ɪst toːt] ⓘ; also known as the death of God) is a statement made by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The first instance of this statement in Nietzsche's writings is in his 1882 The Gay Science, where it appears three times.[note 1] The phrase also appears at the beginning of Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
The meaning of this statement is that since, as Nietzsche says, "the belief in the Christian God has become unbelievable", everything that was "built upon this faith, propped up by it, grown into it", including "the whole [...] European morality", is bound to "collapse".[1] The time of the Enlightenment had transformed collective human knowledge to the point where many would question their beliefs. The framing of the construct suggests that God could exist, from an atheistic perspective, in the minds of men rather than in reality, and so widespread disbelief would equate to God's death.
Other philosophers had previously discussed the concept, including Philipp Mainländer and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. The phrase is also discussed in the Death of God theology.
Early usage
Discourses of a "death of God" in German culture appear as early as the 17th century and originally referred to Lutheran theories of atonement. The phrase "God is dead" appears in the hymn "Ein Trauriger Grabgesang" ("A mournful dirge") by Johann von Rist.[2]
Before Nietzsche, the phrase 'Dieu est mort!' ('God is dead') was written in Gérard de Nerval's 1854 poem "Le Christ aux oliviers" ("Christ at the olive trees").[3] The poem is an adaptation into a verse of a dream-vision that appears in Jean Paul's 1797 novel Siebenkäs under the chapter title of 'The Dead Christ Proclaims That There Is No God'.[4] In an address he gave in 1987 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the literary scholar George Steiner claims that Nietzsche's formulation 'God is dead' is indebted to the aforementioned 'Dead Christ' dream-vision of Jean Paul, but he offers no concrete evidence that Nietzsche ever read Jean Paul.[5]
The phrase is also found in a passage expressed by a narrator in Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables:[6][7]
"God is dead, perhaps," said Gerard de Nerval one day to the writer of these lines, confounding progress with God, and taking the interruption of movement for the death of Being.
Buddhist philosopher K. Satchidananda Murty wrote in 1973 that, coming across in a hymn of Martin Luther what Hegel described as "the cruel words", "the harsh utterance", namely, "God is dead", developed the theme of God's death according to whom, to one form of experience, God is dead. Murty continued that commenting on Kant's first Critique, Heinrich Heine who had purportedly influenced Nietzsche spoke of a dying God. Since Heine and Nietzsche the phrase Death of God became popular.[8]
German philosophy
Hegel
Contemporary historians believe that 19th-century German idealist philosophers, especially those associated with Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, are responsible for removing the specifically Christian resonance of the phrase relating to the death of Jesus Christ and associating it with secular philosophical and sociological theories.[2]
Although the statement and its meaning are attributed to Nietzsche, Hegel had discussed the concept of the death of God in his Phenomenology of Spirit, where he considers the death of God to "Not be seen as anything but an easily recognized part of the usual Christian cycle of redemption".[9] Later on Hegel writes about the great pain of knowing that God is dead: "The pure concept, however, or infinity, as the abyss of nothingness in which all being sinks, must characterize the infinite pain, which previously was only in culture historically and as the feeling on which rests modern religion, the feeling that God Himself is dead, (the feeling which was uttered by Pascal, though only empirically, in his saying: Nature is such that it marks everywhere, both in and outside of man, a lost God), purely as a phase, but also as no more than just a phase, of the highest idea."[10]
Hegel's student Richard Rothe, in his 1837 theological text Die Anfänge der christlichen Kirche und ihrer Verfassung, appears to be one of the first philosophers to associate the idea of a death of God with the sociological theory of secularization.[11]
Stirner
German philosopher Max Stirner, whose influence on Nietzsche is debated, writes in his 1844 book The Ego and its Own that "the work of the Enlightenment, the vanquishing of God: they did not notice that man has killed God in order to become now – 'sole God on high'".[12]
Mainländer
Before Nietzsche, the concept was popularized in philosophy by the German philosopher Philipp Mainländer.[13]
It was while reading Mainländer that Nietzsche explicitly writes to have parted ways with Schopenhauer.[14] In Mainländer's more than 200 pages long criticism of Schopenhauer's metaphysics, he argues against one cosmic unity behind the world, and champions a real multiplicity of wills struggling with each other for existence. Yet, the interconnection and the unitary movement of the world, which are the reasons that lead philosophers to pantheism, are undeniable.[15] They do indeed lead to a unity, but this may not be at the expense of a unity in the world that undermines the empirical reality of the world. It is therefore declared to be dead.
Now we have the right to give this being the well-known name that always designates what no power of imagination, no flight of the boldest fantasy, no intently devout heart, no abstract thinking however profound, no enraptured and transported spirit has ever attained: God. But this basic unity is of the past; it no longer is. It has, by changing its being, totally and completely shattered itself. God has died and his death was the life of the world.[note 2]
— Mainländer, Die Philosophie der Erlösung
Nietzsche
In The Gay Science, "God is dead" is first mentioned in "New Struggles":
After Buddha was dead, his shadow was still shown for centuries in a cave––a tremendous, gruesome shadow. God is dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. ––And we––we still have to vanquish his shadow, too.[17]
Still in The Gay Science, the expression is stated through the voice of the "madman", in "The Madman", as follows:
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
— Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Book III, Section 125, tr. Walter Kaufmann
In the madman passage, the madman is described as running through a marketplace shouting, "I seek God! I seek God!" He arouses some amusement; no one takes him seriously. "Maybe he took an ocean voyage? Lost his way like a little child? Maybe he's afraid of us (non-believers) and is hiding?" – much laughter. Frustrated, the madman smashes his lantern on the ground, crying out that "God is dead, and we have killed him, you and I!". "But I have come too soon", he immediately realizes, as his detractors of a minute before stare in astonishment: people cannot yet see that they have killed God. He goes on to say:
This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars – and yet they have done it themselves.
— Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Section 125, tr. Walter Kaufmann
Lastly, "The Meaning of our Cheerfulness" section of The Gay Science discusses what "God is dead" means ("that the belief in the Christian God has become unworthy of belief"), and the consequences of this fact.[18]
In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, at the end of section 2 of Zarathustra's prologue, after beginning his allegorical journey, Zarathustra encounters an aged ascetic who expresses misanthropy and love of God (a "saint"). Nietzsche writes:
[Zarathustra] saluted the saint and said "What should I have to give you! But let me go quickly that I take nothing from you!" And thus they parted from one another, the old man and Zarathustra, laughing as two boys laugh.
But when Zarathustra was alone, he spoke thus to his heart: "Could it be possible! This old saint has not heard in his forest that God is dead!"
— Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, tr. R.J. Hollingdale[19][20]
What is more, Zarathustra later not only refers to the death of God but states: "Dead are all the Gods." It is not just one morality that has died, but all of them, to be replaced by the life of the Übermensch, the overman:
'DEAD ARE ALL THE GODS: NOW DO WE DESIRE THE OVERMAN TO LIVE.'
— Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part I, Section XXII, 3, tr. Thomas Common
Explanations
Nietzsche recognized the crisis that this "Death of God" represented for existing moral assumptions in Europe as they existed within the context of traditional Christian belief. "When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident [...] By breaking one main concept out of Christianity, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one's hands."[21]
Interpretation
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger understood Nietzsche’s declaration "God is dead" as a commentary on the end of metaphysics. For Heidegger, Nietzsche’s statement signifies not merely a theological or cultural shift but marks the culmination—and, consequently, the demise—of philosophy as metaphysics. Heidegger argued that metaphysics, which had structured Western thought from its inception, had now reached its maximum potential and, in doing so, had exhausted its relevance. The "death of God," then, is emblematic of this end, signaling the dissolution of any metaphysical worldview. According to Heidegger, metaphysics had been bound to end in this way since its origin.[22]
Heidegger viewed the death of God as a pivotal moment in the history of thought, representing a transformation in humanity’s relationship to "Being." This shift, he argued, invites a new mode of engagement with existence, one that transcends human-imposed structures of meaning and value. Unlike Nietzsche, who proposes the "will to power" as a means for individuals to assert their own values, Heidegger critiques this as a lingering form of human-centered valuation, one that still attempts to impose meaning onto existence.[23]
Instead, Heidegger advocates a contemplative approach, suggesting that we "let Being be"—appreciating existence without the constraints of human valuation or the demand for purpose. This approach marks a philosophical divergence: while Nietzsche encourages the active creation of values in a world absent of divine authority, Heidegger calls for a more fundamental openness to Being itself, free from valuation. In this sense, the "death" of God is not only a loss but also an opportunity for a new, radically different understanding of existence.[23]
Death of God theology
Main article: Death of God theology
Although theologians since Nietzsche had occasionally used the phrase "God is dead" to reflect increasing unbelief in God, the concept rose to prominence in theology in the late 1950s and 1960s, subsiding in the early 1970s, as the Death of God theology.[24] The German-born theologian Paul Tillich, for instance, was influenced by the writings of Nietzsche, especially his phrase "God is dead".[25]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_is_dead
https://www.facebook.com/4williamdunn/posts/pfbid02qe8DjKRsYSZ1tH1zFS7Zmeus2UM6s6wSNZC6B6wFBNJtZ38aKy26UAYHW52LUMLGl
Politics
Vance says it was "pretty crazy" that he met Pope Francis in his last 24 hours
By Kaia Hubbard
April 23, 2025 / 9:58 AM EDT / CBS News
Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday that it was "pretty crazy" that he was among the last officials to meet with Pope Francis before his death earlier this week.
"When I saw him, I didn't know that he had less than 24 hours still on this earth," Vance told reporters in Agra, India. "I think it was a great blessing."
The vice president is on a four-day trip in India with his wife Usha, the first Hindu American second lady, whose parents emigrated to the U.S. from India. Vance's visit with his family comes after they traveled to Italy last week to participate in Holy Week events. Vance noted that plans remain in flux about whether he will attend the pope's funeral in the coming days.
The vice president outlined his brief visit with Francis on Easter Sunday, saying he knew the pope was "very ill," but he "didn't realize how sick he was."
"The thing that I will always remember Pope Francis for is that he was a great pastor," Vance said. "People on the margins, poor people, people suffering from diseases, they saw in Pope Francis an advocate and I think, a true expression of Christian love."
Vance added that the pontiff "affected a lot of lives," saying that he tries to remember "that I was lucky that I got to shake his hand and tell him that I pray for him every day, because I did and I do."
Vance and Francis' meeting came after the two men had sharp disagreements on immigration as the pontiff had long condemned the Trump administration's approach. Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, told reporters Wednesday that he's aware of the disagreements the pope had with some of the Trump administration's policies, while noting that he would not "soil the man's legacy by talking about politics."
On the selection of the next pope, the vice president said he would "say a prayer for wisdom" for the Cardinals, saying that "I want them to pick somebody who will be good for the world's Catholics."
"But I'll let them make that decision, and obviously they're entitled to do so," he added.
The vice president's trip to India comes amid President Trump's recent actions on tariffs. Vance arrived in India on Monday and met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after which the leaders touted progress on trade talks.
The vice president told reporters Wednesday that "we're making progress across the board," though he said of the trade discussions more broadly that it's "a little bit too early to prejudge, to say what any of these deals is going to look like."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pope-francis-death-jd-vance-meeting/
James David Vance (born James Donald Bowman;[a] August 2, 1984) is an American politician, author, attorney, and Marine Corps veteran who is the 50th vice president of the United States serving under President Donald Trump. A member of the Republican Party, he represented Ohio in the U.S. Senate from 2023 to 2025.
Vance was born in Middletown, Ohio. After high school, Vance joined the Marine Corps, where he served as a military journalist from 2003 to 2007, and was deployed to the Iraq War for six months in 2005. He graduated from Ohio State University with a bachelor's degree in 2009 and Yale Law School with a law degree in 2013. He practiced briefly as a corporate lawyer before embarking on a career in the tech industry as a venture capitalist. His memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, was published in 2016[2] and adapted into a film in 2020.
Vance won the 2022 United States Senate election in Ohio, defeating Democratic nominee Tim Ryan. After initially opposing Donald Trump's candidacy in the 2016 election, Vance became a strong Trump supporter during Trump's first presidency. In July 2024, Trump selected Vance as his running mate before the Republican National Convention. He served as Ohio's senator until his resignation in preparation to assume the vice presidency in January 2025. Vance is the third-youngest vice president in U.S. history, as well as the first millennial to hold the office.
Vance has been characterized as a national conservative and right-wing populist, and he describes himself as a member of the postliberal right. His political positions include opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage and gun control. Vance is an outspoken critic of childlessness and has credited the influence of Catholic theology on his sociopolitical positions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JD_Vance
Is the Catholic church ready for its first African Pope?
As world leaders gather in Rome for Pope Francis’s funeral on Saturday, many Catholics are wondering if the church could soon elect its first black pope. With Africa home to one in five Catholics, the idea of a pope from the continent is gaining ground.
Issued on: 26/04/2025 - 09:01
By:
RFI
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Since Francis’s death over Easter, one name gaining attention in the Vatican is Ghana’s Cardinal Peter Turkson.
In 2010, Turkson said he wasn’t ready to become pope and that the church might not be ready either. "I wouldn't want to be that first black pope. I think he'll have a rough time," he said.
But Africa’s share of the Catholic population is growing. The continent is now home to 20 percent of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, as the church struggles to hold on to followers in increasingly secular Europe.
Some now believe the time could be right for the first black pope.
A spiritual leader
Cardinal Peter Turkson, 76, grew up in a small town in what was then the Gold Coast, under British rule. He was the fourth of 10 children. His father worked in a mine and as a carpenter, while his mother sold vegetables at the market.
Turkson studied in seminaries in Ghana and New York, was ordained in 1975, then taught in Ghana. He later completed advanced Biblical studies in Rome.
Pope John Paul II made him archbishop of Cape Coast in 1992 and, in 2003, the first cardinal in Ghana’s history.
His rise continued under John Paul’s successor, Benedict XVI, who brought him to the Vatican in 2009 and made him head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
There, he became one of the pope’s closest advisors, working on issues like climate change and economic justice.
Turkson is seen as having both a strong connection to local congregations in Ghana and experience leading Vatican offices. His communication skills have also been praised.
Other African contenders
Turkson is not the only African name being mentioned as the church prepares for a conclave to choose its next leader. He would also not be the first African pontiff – Pope Victor I, from North Africa, led the church from 189 to 199.
"There has been this sense which has built up that the pope, if he is going to be a global authority, needs to come from the global church," said Miles Pattenden, a historian of Catholicism at Oxford University.
But Pattenden also said there is no reason to believe the next pope will follow Francis’s more liberal approach.
Francis often called for reform but didn’t always deliver. That middle ground might appeal to African candidates, some of whom have been called too conservative by critics, said Cristina Traina, a religious studies professor at Fordham University in New York.
One example is Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea, a traditionalist who compared abortion, "Islamic fanaticism" and homosexuality to Nazi ideology. He could attract support from more conservative cardinals.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo has been mentioned. He led efforts to oppose the blessing of same-sex couples in Africa after Francis encouraged acceptance of such unions elsewhere.
A long time coming
Francis, who was from Argentina, worked to make the Vatican reflect the diversity of its members. African cardinals now make up 12 percent of those eligible to vote in the conclave, up from eight percent at the last papal election.
"It would be almost impossible to imagine the world accepting an African pope without this transition of Pope Francis having been from Argentina," said Traina.
Africa still has fewer voting cardinals than some think it should.
Some African Catholics also feel left out. A Congolese priest, who did not want to be named, told the French news agency AFP: "Even if it isn't obvious among our European brothers, discrimination is still a reality that we often don't talk about."
He said the church has made progress, but there is a reason no African has been pope in 1,500 years.
An African pope could bring new ideas to the church’s current challenges, including the ban on married priests, said Traina.
"It has always been on our lips how we wish to have an African pope," said Father Paul Maji, a priest in Abuja, Nigeria. But he added that Africans should not be "sentimental" about where the next pope comes from.
Sylvain Badibanga, dean of the theology faculty at the Catholic University of Congo, told AFP: "We shouldn't think 'it's our turn'. It's God's turn."
Archbishop Dieudonné Nzapalainga of Bangui, made a cardinal in 2016 after Francis visited the Central African Republic, will vote in a conclave for the first time.
"This is not about regional, continental, or even personal interests," he told RFI, adding that cardinals must think about the broader interests of the Catholic church.
As his name came up again before the 2013 conclave that chose Francis, Turkson said he could become pope "if it's the will of God".
(with newswires)
https://www.rfi.fr/en/international/20250426-is-the-catholic-church-ready-for-an-african-pope
Presidential elections are scheduled to be held in the United States on November 7, 2028, to elect the president and vice president of the United States for a term of four years.
In the 2024 elections, the Republican Party gained a majority of seats in the House of Representatives and Senate. Incumbent president Donald Trump won a non-consecutive second term; per the limits set by the 22nd Amendment, he is constitutionally barred from being elected president again.[1]
Background
See also: 2024 United States elections
The Republican Party returned to power in the United States with a government trifecta in January 2025 following the 2024 election. Trump, who was elected president in 2016 but lost a re-election bid in 2020 to Joe Biden, and JD Vance, a then-senator from Ohio defeated vice president Kamala Harris, who began her campaign following Biden's exit from the 2024 election, and Minnesota governor Tim Walz. Trump's victory was credited to a post-pandemic surge in inflation,[a] a migrant crisis at the U.S.–Mexico border,[b] and a global anti-incumbent backlash.[8][9][10] In addition, Republicans secured control of the Senate, flipping four seats and earning a three seat majority, while also retaining a House majority, though the party's majority narrowed to three seats after losing two seats.[11]
Electoral system
Main article: United States Electoral College
See also: United States presidential primary and Primary elections in the United States
The president and vice president of the United States are elected through the Electoral College, determined by the number of senators and representatives with an additional three representatives for Washington, D.C. A majority of 270 votes is needed to win the election. Forty-eight states use a winner-take-all system, in which states award all of their electors to the winner of the popular vote. In Maine and Nebraska, two votes are allocated to the winner of the popular vote, while each of the individual congressional districts have one vote. Electoral votes are certified by state electors in December and by Congress on January 6.[12] Presidential candidates are selected in a presidential primary, conducted through primary elections run by state governments or caucuses run by state parties which bind convention delegates to candidates.[13] A brokered convention occurs when a candidate does not receive a majority of votes on the first round of voting,[14] or when a candidate withdraws.[15]
Election Day in the United States has been held on the first Tuesday that falls after the first Monday in November.[16] Previously, states could determine their own Election Day prior to the first Wednesday in December. The 2028 presidential election will occur on November 7, 2028.[17]
Eligibility
The United States Constitution limits occupancy of the presidency to individuals who are at least thirty-five, who have been a resident in the United States for at least fourteen years, and who are a natural-born citizen.[18] Section three of the Fourteenth Amendment prevents current and former federal, state, and military officials from holding office—including the presidency—if they have "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the United States;[19] in March 2024, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Trump v. Anderson that former president Donald Trump could seek office after challenges to his ballot eligibility were raised by several state attorneys general.[20] A convicted felon may serve as president.[21] Elon Musk, who emerged as a political influencer in the 2024 presidential election, is ineligible to serve as president as he was born in South Africa and is a naturalized citizen.[22]
Trump is ineligible to be elected to a third term, as the Twenty-Second Amendment forbids any person from being elected president more than twice.[23] Nonetheless, he has repeatedly suggested running for a third term, an idea supported by several of his allies, including Steve Bannon.[24] In January 2025, Tennessee representative Andy Ogles proposed a resolution to amend the Twenty-Second Amendment, allowing for presidents who have served two non-consecutive terms to seek a third term. The verbiage of the amendment would prevent living presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, all currently ineligible under the 22nd Amendment, from running for a third term.[25] At CPAC 2025, conservative groups, such as the Third Term Project, supported the Ogles resolution and promoted the idea of Trump running for an as-yet unconstitutional third term.[26][27] In response, New York Democratic representative Dan Goldman planned to introduce a resolution affirming the Twenty-Second Amendment.[28]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2028_United_States_presidential_election
Kamala Devi Harris (English: /ˈkɑːmələ ˈdeɪvi/ ⓘ,[1] born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and attorney who has been the 49th and current vice president of the United States since 2021, serving under President Joe Biden. Harris is the Democratic presidential nominee in the 2024 United States presidential election. She is the first female vice president of the United States, making her the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history. She is also the first African American and first Asian American vice president. From 2017 to 2021, she represented California in the United States Senate. Before that, she was Attorney General of California from 2011 to 2017.
Born in Oakland, California, Harris graduated from Howard University and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She began her law career in the office of the district attorney of Alameda County. She was recruited to the San Francisco District Attorney's Office and later to the office of the city attorney of San Francisco. She was elected district attorney of San Francisco in 2003 and attorney general of California in 2010, and reelected as attorney general in 2014. As the San Francisco district attorney and the attorney general of California, Harris was the first woman, the first African American, and the first Asian American to hold each office.
Harris was the junior U.S. senator from California from 2017 to 2021. She won the 2016 Senate election, becoming the second Black woman and first South Asian American U.S. senator. As a senator, Harris advocated for stricter gun control laws, the DREAM Act, federal legalization of cannabis, and reforms to healthcare and taxation. She gained a national profile for her pointed questioning of Trump administration officials during Senate hearings, including Trump's second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.
Harris sought the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination in 2019, but withdrew from the race before the primaries. Biden selected her as his running mate, and their ticket defeated the incumbent president and vice president, Donald Trump and Mike Pence, in the 2020 election. Presiding over an evenly split Senate upon entering office, Harris played a crucial role as president of the Senate. She cast more tie-breaking votes than any other vice president, which helped pass bills such as the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 stimulus package and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. After Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential election, Harris launched her campaign with Biden's endorsement and soon became the presumptive nominee. On August 6, 2024, she chose Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, as her running mate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris
Kali (/ˈkɑːliː/; Sanskrit: काली, IAST: Kālī), also called Kalika, is a major goddess in Hinduism, primarily associated with time, death and destruction. The origins of Kali can be traced to the pre-Vedic and Vedic era Goddess worship traditions in Ancient India.[1] Kali is the first of the ten Mahavidyas in the Hindu tantric tradition and is the supreme deity in the Kalikula worship tradition.[2]
The first major appearance of Kali in the Sanskrit literature was in the sixth-century CE text Devi Mahatmya.[1] Kali appears in numerous stories, with her most famous being when she sprang from the goddess Durga's fury to defeat the demon Raktabija. She is stated to destroy evil and defend the innocent. Kali is worshipped as the Divine Mother, Mother of the Universe, and Divine feminine energy.[3][4][5]
Shakta and Tantric sects additionally worship Kali as the ultimate reality or Brahman.[5] She is also seen as the divine protector and bestower of moksha (liberation).[3] Worshipped throughout South Asia but particularly in Nepal, Southern India, Bengal, and Assam, Kali is a central figure in the goddess-centric traditions of Hinduism as well as in Shaivism.[1][6]
Etymology
The term Kali is derived from Kala, which is mentioned quite differently in Sanskrit.[7] The homonym kālá (time) is distinct from kāla (black), but these became associated through popular etymology.[8] Kali is then understood as "she who is the ruler of time", or "she who is black".[7] Kālī is the goddess of time or death and the consort of Shiva.[9] She is called Kali Mata ("the dark mother") and also kālī, which can be read here either as a proper name or as a description: "the dark (or black) one".[8]
Origins
Although the word Kālī appears as early as the Atharva Veda, the first use of it as a proper name is in the Kathaka Grhya Sutra (19.7).[10] Kali originated as a tantric and non-Vedic goddess. Her roots are most probably connected to the Pre-Aryan period.[11] According to Indologist Wendy Doniger, Kali's origins can be traced to the deities of the Pre-Vedic village, tribal, and mountain cultures of South Asia who were gradually appropriated and transformed by the Sanskritic traditions.[1]
Legends
Her most well-known appearance is on the battlefield in the sixth century text Devi Mahatmyam. The deity of the first chapter of Devi Mahatmyam is Mahakali, who appears from the body of sleeping Vishnu as goddess Yoga Nidra to wake him up in order to protect Brahma and the world from two asuras (demons), Madhu-Kaitabha. When Vishnu woke up he started a war against the two asuras. After a long battle with Vishnu, the two demons were undefeated and Mahakali took the form of Mahamaya to enchant the two asuras. When Madhu and Kaitabha were enchanted by Mahakali, Vishnu killed them.[12]
In later chapters, the story of two asuras who were destroyed by Kali can be found. Chanda and Munda attack the goddess Kaushiki. Kaushiki responds with such anger that it causes her face to turn dark, resulting in Kali appearing out of her forehead. Kali's appearance is dark blue, gaunt with sunken eyes, wearing a tiger skin sari and a garland of human heads. She immediately defeats the two asuras. Later in the same battle, the asura Raktabija is undefeated because of his ability to reproduce himself from every drop of his blood that reaches the ground. Countless Raktabija clones appear on the battlefield. Kali eventually defeats him by sucking his blood before it can reach the ground, and eating the numerous clones. Kinsley writes that Kali represents "Durga's personified wrath, her embodied fury".[12]
Other origin stories involve Parvati and Shiva. Parvati is typically portrayed as a benign and friendly goddess. The Linga Purana describes Shiva asking Parvati to defeat the asura Daruka, who received a boon that would only allow a female to kill him. Parvati merges with Shiva's body, reappearing as Kali to defeat Daruka and his armies. Her bloodlust gets out of control, only calming when Shiva intervenes. The Vamana Purana has a different version of Kali's relationship with Parvati. When Shiva addresses Parvati as Kali, "the dark blue one", she is greatly offended. Parvati performs austerities to lose her dark complexion and becomes Gauri, the golden one. Her dark sheath becomes Kaushiki, who while enraged, creates Kali.[12]
In the Devi Bhagavata Purana, Kali turns black out of rage, while battling the demons Shumbha and Nishumbha.[7]: 221
Slayer of Raktabīja
In Kāli's most famous legend, Durga and her assistants, the Matrikas, wound the demon Raktabīja, in various ways and with a variety of weapons in an attempt to destroy him. They soon find that they have worsened the situation for with every drop of blood that drips from Raktabīja, he reproduces a duplicate of himself. The battlefield becomes increasingly filled with his duplicates.[12] Durga summons Kāli to combat the demons. This episode is described in the Devi Mahatmyam, Kali is depicted as being fierce, clad in a tiger's skin and armed with a sword and noose. She has deep, red eyes with tongue lolling out as she catches drops of Raktabīja's blood before they fall to the ground and create duplicates.[13]
Kali consumes Raktabīja and his duplicates, and dances on the corpses of the slain.[12] In the Devi Mahatmya version of this story, Kali is also described as a Matrika and as a Shakti or power of Devi. She is given the epithet Cāṃuṇḍā (Chamunda), i.e. the slayer of the demons Chanda and Munda.[13]: 72 Chamunda is very often identified with Kali and is very much like her in appearance and habit.[12]: 241 Footnotes
Iconography and forms
The goddess has two depictions: the popular four-armed form and the ten-armed Mahakali avatar. In both, she is described as being black in colour, though she is often seen as blue in popular Indian art. Her eyes are described as red with intoxication and rage. Her hair is disheveled, small fangs sometimes protrude out of her mouth, and her tongue is lolling. Sometimes she dons a skirt made of human arms and a garland of human heads. Other times, she is seen wearing a tiger skin. She is also accompanied by serpents and a jackal while standing on the calm and prostrate Shiva, usually right foot forward to symbolize the more popular dakṣiṇācāra ("right-hand path"), as opposed to the more infamous and transgressive vamachara ("left-hand path").[14] These serpents and jackals are shown to drink Raktabīja's blood as it drips out of his head while the goddess carries the head in her hand, preventing it from falling on the ground.
In the ten-armed form of Mahakali, she is depicted as shining like a blue stone. She has ten faces, ten feet, and three eyes for each head. She has ornaments decked on all her limbs. There is no association with Shiva.[15]
The Kalika Purana describes Kali as "possessing a soothing dark complexion, as perfectly beautiful, riding a lion, four-armed, holding a sword and blue lotus, her hair unrestrained, body firm and youthful".[16]
Popular form
Classic depictions of Kali share several features, as follows:
Kali's most common four armed iconographic image shows each hand carrying variously a Khadga (crescent-shaped sword or a giant sickle), a trishul (trident), a severed head, and a bowl or skull-cup (kapāla) collecting the blood of the severed head.
Two of these hands (usually the left) are holding a sword and a severed head. The sword signifies divine knowledge and the human head signifies human ego which must be slain by divine knowledge in order to attain moksha. The other two hands (usually the right) are in the abhaya (fearlessness) and varada (blessing) mudras, which means her initiated devotees (or anyone worshipping her with a true heart) will be saved as she will guide them here and in the hereafter.[16]: 477
She wears a garland of human heads, variously enumerated at 108 (an auspicious number in Hinduism and the number of countable beads on a japa mala or rosary for repetition of mantras) or 51, which represents Varnamala or the Garland of letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, Devanagari. Hindus believe Sanskrit is a language of dynamism, and each of these letters represents a form of energy, or a form of Kali. Therefore, she is generally seen as the mother of language, and all mantras.[16]: 475
She is often depicted naked which symbolizes her being beyond the covering of Maya since she is pure (nirguna) being-consciousness-bliss and far above Prakriti. She is shown as very dark as she is Brahman in its supreme unmanifest state. She has no permanent qualities—she will continue to exist even when the universe ends. It is therefore believed that the concepts of color, light, good, and bad do not apply to her.[16]: 463–488
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali
2030-2031 APPARITION CHARACTERISTICS
Another general rule for predicting oppositions of Mars is from the following: the planet has an approximate 15.8-year periodic opposition cycle, which consists of three or four Aphelic oppositions and three consecutive Perihelic oppositions. Perihelic oppositions are also called "favorable" because the Earth and Mars come closest to each other on those occasions. We sometimes refer to this as the seven Martian synodic periods. This cycle is repeated every 79 years (± 4 to 5 days) and, if one were to live long enough, one would see this cycle nearly replicated in approximately 284 years. The 2031 Mars apparition is considered Transitional (between Aphelic and Perihelic) because the orbital longitude at opposition will be 68.4° from the aphelion longitude of 70° Ls and 111.6° Ls from perihelion (250° Ls).
NOTE: Ls is the planetocentric longitude of the Sun along the ecliptic of Mars’ sky. 0° Ls is defined as that point where the Sun crosses the Martian celestial equator from south to north, that is the planet’s northern hemisphere vernal equinox. The other Ls values that define the beginnings of Martian northern hemisphere seasons are: summer, 90° Ls; autumn, 180° Ls; and winter, 270° Ls. For Mars’ southern hemisphere these values represent the opposite seasons. Distance (A.U.) - Distance from Earth to Mars in astronomical units, where one (1) A.U. equals 92,955,807.267 miles or 149,597,870.691 km.
Opposition occurs 11 months after conjunction when Mars is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. At that time, the two planets will lie nearly in a straight line with respect to the Sun, or five weeks after retrogression begins. Opposition will occur at 1157 UT on May 04, 2031 (138.4° Ls) with an apparent planetary disk diameter of 16.7 arcsec. Mars will remain visible for more than twelve months after opposition and then become lost in the glare of the Sun around May 31, 2032 as it approaches the next conjunction (July 11, 2032). The cycle is complete in 780 Earth days.
Closest approach occurs at 0350 UT on May 12, 2031 (142.1° Ls) with an apparent planetary disk diameter of 16.9 at a distance of 0.5533578 astronomical units (AU) or 51,437,823 miles (82,781,152 km). During closest approach in 2031 the apparent diameter of Mars will be 2.4 arcsec larger than it was at the same period in 2029; however, it will be 17.1 degrees lower in the sky - not quite as good for observing the Red Planet for observers in the northern hemisphere. It should also be noted that closest approach between Earth and Mars is not necessarily coincident with the time of opposition but varies by as much as two weeks.
https://www.alpo-astronomy.org/jbeish/2031_MARS.htm
Devī (/ˈdeɪvi/;[1] Sanskrit: देवी) is the Sanskrit word for 'goddess'; the masculine form is deva. Devi and deva mean 'heavenly, divine, anything of excellence', and are also gender-specific terms for a deity in Hinduism.
The concept and reverence for goddesses appears in the Vedas, which were composed around the 2nd millennium BCE. However, they did not play a vital role in that era.[2] Goddesses such as Durga, Kali, Lakshmi, Parvati, Radha, Saraswati and Sita have continued to be revered in the modern era.[2] The medieval era Puranas witness a major expansion in mythology and literature associated with Devi, with texts such as the Devi Mahatmya, wherein she manifests as the ultimate truth and supreme power. She has inspired the Shaktism tradition of Hinduism. Further, Devi is viewed as central in the Hindu traditions of Shaktism and Shaivism.[2][3]
Etymology
Devi and deva are Sanskrit terms found in Vedic literature around the 3rd millennium BCE. Deva is masculine, and the related feminine equivalent is devi.[4] Monier-Williams translates it as 'heavenly, divine, terrestrial things of high excellence, exalted, shining ones'.[5][6] Etymologically, a cognate of devi is Latin dea.[7] When capitalised, Devi maata refers to the mother goddess in Hinduism.[8] Deva is short for devatā and devi for devika.[5]
According to Douglas Harper, the etymological root dev- means "a shining one", from *div-, "to shine", it is an Indo-European cognate of the Greek dios, Gothic divine and Latin deus (Old Latin deivos); see also *Dyēus.[9]
A synonym for the word Devi in the Vedas is Bhagavati. Bhagavatī (Devanagari: भगवती, IAST: Bhagavatī), is an Indian epithet of Sanskrit origin, used as an honorific title for goddesses in Hinduism and Buddhism. In Hinduism, it is primarily used to address the goddesses Lakshmi and Durga. In Buddhism, it is used to refer to several Mahayana Buddhist female deities, like Cundā.[10]
History
The worship of Devi-like deities dates back to period of Indus Valley civilisation.[11][12]
The Devīsūkta of the Rigveda (10.125.1 to 10.125.8) is among the most studied hymns declaring that the ultimate reality is a goddess:[13][14]
I have created all worlds at my will without being urged by any higher Being, and dwell within them. I permeate the earth and heaven, and all created entities with my greatness and dwell in them as eternal and infinite consciousness.
— Devi Sukta, Rigveda 10.125.8, Translated by June McDaniel[15][16]
The Vedas name numerous cosmic goddesses such as Devi (power), Prithvi (earth), Aditi (cosmic moral order), Vāc (sound), Nirṛti (destruction), Ratri (night) and Aranyani (forest); bounty goddesses such as Dinsana, Raka, Puramdhi, Parendi, Bharati and Mahi are among others are mentioned in the Rigveda.[2]: 6–17, 55–64 However, the goddesses are not discussed as frequently as gods (devas).[2] Devi appears in late Vedic texts dated to be pre-Buddhist, but verses dedicated to her do not suggest that her characteristics were fully developed in the Vedic era.[2]: 18–19 All gods and goddesses are distinguished in Vedic times,[2]: 18 but in post-Vedic texts, particularly in the early medieval era literature, they are ultimately seen as aspects or manifestations of one Devi, the Supreme Power.[17]
Devi is the supreme being in the Shakta tradition of Hinduism; in the Smarta tradition, she is one of the five primary forms of Brahman that is revered.[18][19] In other Hindu traditions, Devi embodies the active energy and power of Deva, and they always appear together complementing each other. Examples of this are Parvati with Shiva in Shaivism, Saraswati with Brahma in Brahmanism and Lakshmi with Vishnu, Sita with Rama and Radha with Krishna in Vaishnavism.[20][21][22]
Devi-inspired philosophy is propounded in many Hindu texts such as the Devi Upanishad, which teaches that Shakti is essentially Brahman (ultimate metaphysical Reality) and that from her arises prakṛti (matter) and purusha (consciousness) and that she is bliss and non-bliss, the Vedas and what is different from it, the born and the unborn and all of the universe. Shakti is Parvati, Shiva’s wife. [23] She is also mentioned as the creative power of Shiva in Tripura Upanishad, Bahvricha Upanishad and Guhyakali Upanishad.[13]
Devi identifies herself in the Devi Upanishad as Brahman in her reply to the gods stating that she rules the world, blesses devotees with riches, that she is the supreme deity to whom all worship is to be offered and that she infuses Ātman in every soul.[23] Devi asserts that she is the creator of earth and heaven and resides there.[13] Her creation of the sky as father and the seas as the mother is reflected as the 'Inner Supreme Self'.[13] Her creations are not prompted by any higher being and she resides in all her creations. She is, states Devi, the eternal and infinite consciousness engulfing earth and heaven, and 'all forms of bliss and non-bliss, knowledge and ignorance, Brahman and Non-Brahman'. The tantric aspect in Devi Upanishad, says June McDaniel, is the usage of the terms yantra, bindu, bija, mantra, shakti and chakra.[13]
Among the major world religions, the concept of Goddess in Hinduism as the divine feminine has had the strongest presence since ancient times.[24]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devi
The name Monita has its roots in India and is derived from the Sanskrit word manita, which means 'honored' or 'respected.' This ancient name reflects the cultural traditions and values of Indian society, where respect and honor hold great significance. Monita has been prominent in Indian history since ancient times, often given to those who were esteemed for their noble character and high social standing. In historical texts and scriptures, the name Monita is often associated with individuals who were recognized for their wisdom, integrity, and leadership qualities.
In modern-day usage, the name Monita continues to evoke a sense of honor and respect. It is a popular name choice among families who value tradition and wish to bestow upon their child a name that reflects these virtues. Monita is often given to female children, symbolizing the strength and dignity they possess. In some cases, the name Monita is also used as a name, further emphasizing the family's heritage and the importance they place on respect and honor.
Overall, the name Monita has a rich history rooted in Indian culture and embodies the values of honor and respect. From ancient times to the present day, this name has stood as a testament to the qualities that society holds in high regard and continues to be cherished by families who wish to pass on these values to future generations.
https://www.ancestry.com/first-name-meaning/monita
Monita
A Latin word meaning "instructions":
Monita, work by Abbot Porcarius I of Lérins (c. 500)
Monita Secreta, an alleged code of instructions of the Jesuits
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monita
14We ought to act on the principle that everyone who lives under obedience should let himself be carried and directed by Divine Providence through the agency of the superior 15as if he were a lifeless body, which allows itself to be carried to any place and treated in any way; or an old man s staff, which serves at any place and for any purpose in which the one holding it in his hand wishes to employ it. 16For in this way the obedient man ought joyfully to employ himself in any task in which the superior desires to employ him in aid of the whole body of the religious order; 17and he ought to hold it certain that by so doing he conforms himself with the divine will more than by anything else he could do while following his own will and different judgment.[3]"
page 221
The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms
A Complete English Translation of the Official Latin Texts
THE INSTITUTE OF JESUIT SOURCES
SAINT LOUIS, 1996
https://web.archive.org/web/20200211182223/https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf
Fourteenth Rule. Although there is much truth in the assertion that no one can save himself without being predestined and without having faith and grace; we must be very cautious in the manner of speaking and communicating with others about all these things.
The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YC_luOfFWl0Bm0BWkbANKZGC1kkmdHQf/view?usp=sharing
Thomas Trace Beatie (born 1974[1]) is an American public speaker, author, and advocate of transgender rights and sexuality issues, with a focus on transgender fertility and reproductive rights.[2]
Beatie came out as a trans man in early 1997. Beatie had gender-affirming surgery in March 2002 and became known as "the pregnant man" after he became pregnant through artificial insemination in 2007.[3] Beatie chose to be pregnant, with donated sperm,[4][5] because his wife Nancy was sterile.
The couple filed for divorce in 2012. The Beatie case is the first of its kind on record, where a documented legal male gave birth within a marriage to a woman, and for the first time, a court challenged a marriage where the husband gave birth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Beatie
Tracing boards are painted or printed illustrations depicting the various emblems and symbols of Freemasonry. They can be used as teaching aids during the lectures that follow each of the Masonic Degrees, when an experienced member explains the various concepts of Freemasonry to new members. They can also be used by experienced members as reminders of the concepts they learned as they went through the ceremonies of the different masonic degrees.[1]
History and development
Floor and table designs
In the eighteenth century Masonic lodges met chiefly in private rooms above taverns, and the symbolic designs used in catechesis were chalked on the table or floor in the centre of the hired room, usually by the Tyler or the Worshipful Master.[2] Evidence suggests that a simple boundary was drawn (usually a square or rectangle, or sometimes a cross) within which various Masonic symbols were added, often of a geometric type (such as a circle or pentagram). In many lodges the boundary shape may have been drawn by the Tyler, with the Master adding the symbolic detail. Later various symbolic objects were incorporated, examples including a ladder, a beehive, and an hourglass, and sometimes drawings were interchangeable with physical objects.[3] At the end of the work a new member was often required to erase the drawing with a mop, as a practical demonstration of his obligation of secrecy.
Though the various Grand Lodges were then generally hostile to the creation of any physical representations of the ritual and symbols of the Craft, the time-consuming business of redrawing the symbols at every meeting was gradually replaced by keeping a removable "floor cloth" on which the various symbols were painted. Different portions might be exposed according to the work being executed.[4] By the second half of the eighteenth century the Masonic symbols were being painted on a variety of removable materials ranging from small marble slabs to canvas, to give a more decorative and elaborate symbolic display.
Painted boards
During the nineteenth century there was a rapid expansion of the use of permanent painted tracing boards, usually painted on canvas and framed in wood. Many artists produced competing designs, and most lodges commissioned sets of bespoke boards which were therefore of a unique design, despite following common themes. Some designs became particularly popular, leading to some repetition of favoured design features. Boards by John Cole and Josiah Bowring were examples of popularly recurring designs.[5]
The English artist John Harris was initiated in 1818 and produced many different series of tracing boards, including a miniature set of 1823 which became popular after Harris dedicated the design to Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, the Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE).[6] Eventually the Emulation Lodge of Improvement sought to bring a measure of standardisation in tracing board design, and organised a competition in 1845, to which many different designs were submitted. Harris himself submitted at least two different sets to the competition, but one of his designs was the winner. Harris revised the designs in 1849, and these "Emulation" tracing boards are today considered a definitive design within British and Commonwealth Freemasonry.[7]
Contemporary use
In lodges under the UGLE, and many jurisdictions derived from English Freemasonry, tracing boards are an essential part of lodge furniture, sometimes displayed flat on the floor, and sometimes vertically against a pedestal or on the wall. Sets of three boards, usually of older designs, may often be found in special cases for storage and display within lodge rooms. There are sometimes tracing boards in other degrees.[8] The Royal Arch tracing board has fallen into disuse in most places, and examples are now rare. In the Mark Master Mason and Royal Ark Mariner degrees as administered from London, the tracing boards have experienced a great revival in popularity from the end of the twentieth century, and official rituals for the explanations of these tracing boards are again in regular use in English lodges.
As different Masonic jurisdictions established official, or standard, degree rituals the creation of new tracing boards by artists waned, and has since largely disappeared in favour of standard designs. Nonetheless, some masonic artists have experimented with very modern designs for the twenty-first century.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracing_board
Mallotus philippensis is a plant in the spurge family. It is known as the kamala tree or red kamala or kumkum tree, due to the fruit covering, which produces a red dye. However, it must be distinguished from kamala meaning "lotus" in many Indian languages, an unrelated plant, flower, and sometimes metonymic spiritual or artistic concept. Mallotus philippensis has many other local names. This kamala often appears in rainforest margins. Or in disturbed areas free from fire, in moderate to high rainfall areas.
It occurs in South Asia, Southeast Asia, as well as Afghanistan and Australia. The southernmost limit of natural distribution is Mount Keira, south of Sydney. The species name refers to the type specimen being collected in the Philippines, where it is known as banato.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallotus_philippensis
Revelation 22:1-3
1599 Geneva Bible
22 1 The river of water of life is showed, 2 and the tree of life: 6, 7 Then followeth the conclusion of this prophecy, 8 where John declareth, that the things herein contained are most true. 13 And now the third time repeateth these words, All things come from him, who is the beginning and the end.
1 And [a]he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God, and of the Lamb.
2 In the midst of the street of it, and of either side of the river was the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and gave fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree served to heal the nations with.
3 And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall serve him.
Read full chapter
Footnotes
Revelation 22:1 Here is absolved and finished the description of the celestial Church (as I showed before, Rev. 21:12) by the effects in 5 verses, and then this book is concluded in the rest of the chapter. The effects proceeding from God, who dwelleth in the Church are these: the everlasting grace of God in this verse, the eternal living of the godly, as Rev. 2:7, the eternal fruits which the godly bring forth unto God, themselves and others, verse 2, freedom and immunity from all evil, God himself taking pleasure in his servants and they likewise in their God, verse 3. The beholding and sight of God, and sealing of the faithful from all eternity, verse 4, the light of God, and an everlasting kingdom and glory, verse 5.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2022%3A1-3&version=GNV
The Emblem of Iraq since the rule of Baathism features a golden black eagle looking towards the viewer's left dexter. The eagle is the Eagle of Saladin associated with 20th-century pan-Arabism, bearing a shield of the Iraqi flag, and holding a scroll below with the Arabic words جمهورية العراق (Jumhūriyyat al-ʿIrāq – "Republic of Iraq").
The emblem has been modified three times: in 1991, in 2004, and in 2008.
Emblems of Iraq
1921–1958
Coat of arms of the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq (until 1958)
Following the Mandate for Mesopotamia and the establishment of Kingdom of Iraq, the coat of arms of the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq represented the Kingdom's ancient history during pre-Islamic times, as well as during post-Islamic times.
Symbolizing the monarchy of the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq, the golden crown is composed of five arches with beaded design, fanning out from beneath its pinnacle and attached to the base with a relief design recalling rubies and emeralds. The crown is adorned at the top by the tip of a spear that represents the Hashemite banner.
The crown rests on a royal mantle, which signifies sacrifice and purity. The mantle is trimmed in a fringe of golden threads and gathered on either side with golden tasselled cords to reveal a white silk lining.
Two stars are above the central shield on either sides. Each star represents Ishtar and Shamash.
The shield's dexter supporter is the Lion of Babylon, the sinister supporter is an Arabian horse, both traditional symbols of the power of the king.
The shield in the centre shows a depiction of the land Mesopotamia. They depict the two rivers Euphrates and Tigris flowing through the desert, and their confluence at the Shatt al-Arab. At the confluence is a tree at the rivers banks, which symbolises the largest date palm forest in the world that used to be there. Underneath the tree over the rivers are a scimitar and a spear, to depict defense of the land. Around the shield at the top are in Kufic script "Justice is the basis of ruling" and underneath the year of independence 1339 in Hijri year.
Underneath the shield are gold ears of wheat and a palm frond.
1959–1965
The first post-monarchical state emblem of Iraq adopted under the republican government of Abd al-Karim Qasim was based on the ancient sun-disk symbol of Shamash and Ishtar, and avoided pan-Arab symbolism by incorporating elements of socialist heraldry.[1][2][3]
At the time of the Iraqi Revolution of 1958, Qassim had demonstrated strong pan-Arab and Arab nationalist views, however, these cooled somewhat during his premiership.
Law No.57 of 1959 titled "Emblem of the Iraq Republic" and Article 1, "Description of the Emblem" state:[1]
The Emblem of the Iraqi Republic shall consist of a circle from which eight beams diffuse. Each beam consists of three stretchings, the colour of golden yellow. Between every two beams a deep red projection of a star emerges. Amidst th[a]t circle a blue area exists. In the centre of which there is a golden spike surrounded by a black wheel with eight rectangular projections at the inner side, encircled by a white ring that extends till the black circumference. In the middle of this white ring there is an Arabic sword that embraces the wheel at the left hand-side, and a Kurdish dagger that embraces it at the right hand-side. Between their two tops the phrase ‘THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ’ shall be written in Kufi writing, and between their hilts there is written the phrase ‘JULY 14’ and ‘1958’ underneath, in Kufi writing, too. The colour of the sword, the dagger and the Kufi writing is black.
Emblem of Iraq from 1959 to 1965, based on the ancient symbol of Shamash and the star of Ishtar and avoided pan-Arab symbolism.
Emblem of Iraq from 1959 to 1965, based on the ancient symbol of Shamash and the star of Ishtar and avoided pan-Arab symbolism.
Flag of Iraq from 1959 to 1963 with the star of Ishtar in the middle.
Flag of Iraq from 1959 to 1963 with the star of Ishtar in the middle.
1965–present
The overthrow of Qasim's government by the Ba'ath Party in 1963 marked an increase in pan-Arab sympathies, a change which was demonstrated in the new national flag based on that of the United Arab Republic (UAR). The new Iraqi coat of arms was similarly based on that of the UAR, namely the Eagle of Saladin, which had become a symbol of Arab nationalism following the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. Indeed, the only difference between the two coat of arms was the presence of three green stars in the vertical white band on the eagle's shield, as opposed to the two stars of the UAR, and the specific Arabic script in the scroll under the eagle's feet bearing the name of the official name state.
This version of the coat of arms remained in use until it was modified in January 1991, concurrently with the addition of the Takbir between the green stars on the flag of Iraq. To permit the Takbir to appear on the same line on the shield on the coat of arms, it was decided to make the bands on the shield horizontal instead of vertical. Of the six Arab states that are, or who have previously used the Eagle of Saladin in their coat of arms, post 1991-Iraq is the only state whose coat of arms has its national flag appearing horizontally rather than vertically on the shield. In 2004, following the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, the U.S. appointed Iraqi interim administration modified the Takbir on both the flag and the coat of arms, rendering it in Kufic script. The original 1963 coat of arms without the Takbir remained valid until 2008.
In 2008, concurrent with the removal of the three green stars from the Iraqi flag, the stars were removed from the coat of arms, leaving only the Takbir in the central white band.[4][5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Iraq
Baalshamin (Imperial Aramaic: ܒܥܠ ܫܡܝܢ, romanized: Baʿal Šāmīn or Bʿel Šmīn, lit. 'Lord of Heaven[s]'), also called Baal Shamem (Phoenician: 𐤁𐤏𐤋 𐤔𐤌𐤌, romanized: Baʿl Šāmēm) and Baal Shamaim (Hebrew: בַּעַל שָׁמַיִם, romanized: Baʿal Šāmayīm),[1] was a Northwest Semitic god and a title applied to different gods at different places or times in ancient Middle Eastern inscriptions, especially in Canaan/Phoenicia and Syria. The title was most often applied to Hadad, who is also often titled just Ba‘al. Baalshamin was one of the two supreme gods and the sky god of pre-Islamic Palmyra in ancient Syria (Bel being the other supreme god).[2] There his attributes were the eagle and the lightning bolt, and he perhaps formed a triad with the lunar god Aglibol and the sun god Malakbel.[3] The title was also applied to Zeus.
The earliest known Phoenician reference to Baalshamin is in the Yehimilk inscription, dated to the 10th century BCE.[4]
History
This name was originally a title of Baal Hadad, in the 2nd millennium BC, but came to designate a distinct god circa 1000 BC.[5] The earliest known mention of this god or title is in a treaty of the 14th century BC between Suppiluliumas I, King of the Hittites, and Niqmaddu II, King of Ugarit. Although this could be a reference to Baal Hadad, and again when the name appears in a Phoenician inscription by King Yeḥimilk of Byblos, other texts make a distinction between the two.[citation needed]
In the treaty of 677 BC between King Esarhaddon of Assyria and King Ba‘al I of Tyre, a curse is laid against King Baal if he breaks the treaty, reading in part:
"May Baal-sameme, Baal-malage, and Baal-saphon raise an evil wind against your ships, to undo their moorings, tear out their mooring pole, may a strong wave sink them in the sea, a violent tide [. . .] against you."[6]
The god Baal-malage is otherwise unexplained. Baal-saphon here and elsewhere seems to be Ba'al Hadad, whose home is on Mount Ṣaphon in the Ugaritic texts. But interpreters disagree as to whether these are here three separate gods or three aspects of the same god, a god who causes stormy weather on the sea.[citation needed]
In any case, inscriptions show that the cult of Ba'al Šamem continued in Tyre from Esarhaddon's day until towards the end of the 1st millennium BC.[citation needed]
Baalshamen is mentioned as an idol among other Aramean gods in Mesopotamia by Jacob of Serugh:
“He (that is Satan) put Apollo as idol in Antioch and others with him, In Edessa he set Nebo and Bel together with many others, He led astray Harran by Sin, Baalshamin and Bar Nemre[Nusku] By my Lord with his Dogs[Nergal] and the goddess Taratha[Astarte] and Gadlat." [citation needed]
In Sanchuniathon's main mythology the god he calls in Greek 'Uranus'/'Sky' has been thought by some to stand for Ba'al Šamem. Sky is here the actual father of Baal Hadad (although Baal Hadad is born after his mother's marriage to Dagon). As in Greek mythology and Hittite mythology, Sky is castrated by his son, who is in turn destined to be opposed by the thunder god. In Sanchuniathon's story, Sky also battles Sea; Sky finds himself unable to prevail, so he allies himself with Hadad.[citation needed]
In Nabatean texts in Greek, Baal Shamin is regularly equated with Zeus Helios, that is Zeus as a sun-god. Sanchuniathon supports this:
"... and that when droughts occurred, they stretched out their hands to heaven towards the sun; for him alone (he says) they regarded as god the lord of heaven, calling him Beelsamen, which is in the Phoenician language 'lord of heaven', and in Greek 'Zeus'."[7]
Unfortunately, it is not clear whether Baalshamin is here regarded as a sun-god and the bringer of rain, or whether he is regarded as the cause of drought.[citation needed]
Writers in Syriac refer to Baalshamin as Zeus Olympios Zeus who shines.[citation needed]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baalshamin
The raised fist, or the clenched fist, is a long-standing image of mixed meaning, often a symbol of solidarity, especially with a political movement. It is a common symbol representing a wide range of political ideologies, most notably socialism, communism, anarchism, and trade unionism, and can also be used as a salute expressing unity, strength, or resistance.
History
A painting of a man at the forefront of a crowd raising his fist.
This painting by Honoré Daumier of the French Revolution of 1848 includes a possible early example of a "political clenched fist", according to curator Francesca Seravalle.[1]
A red fist rises from a large crowd outside a factory, and Hungarian text directs workers and citizens to join a mass strike in Budapest, 1912.
This 1912 poster by Mihály Bíró uses the fist as a symbol of the collective power of the massed workers from whom it rises.
The origin of the raised fist as either a symbol or gesture is unclear. Its use in trade unionism, anarchism, and the labor movement had begun by the 1910s. William "Big Bill" Haywood, a founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World, used the metaphor of a fist as something greater than the sum of its parts during a speech at the 1913 Paterson silk strike.[2] Journalist and socialist activist John Reed described hearing a similar description from a participant in the strike.[3] A large raised fist rising from a crowd of striking workers was used to promote a mass strike in Budapest in 1912.[4] In the United States, clenched fist was described by the magazine Mother Earth as "symbolical of the social revolution" in 1914.[5]
The use of the fist as a salute by communists and antifascists is first evidenced in 1924, when it was adopted for the Communist Party of Germany's Roter Frontkämpferbund ("Alliance of Red Front-Fighters"). In reaction, the Nazi Party adopted the well-known Roman salute two years later.[6] The gesture of the raised fist was apparently known in the United States as well, and is seen in a photograph from a May Day march in New York City in 1936.[7] It is perhaps best known in this era from its use during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, as a greeting by the Republican faction, and known as the "Popular Front salute" or the "anti-fascist salute".[8]
Children preparing for evacuation during the Spanish Civil War (1930s), some giving the Republican salute. The Republicans showed a raised right fist whereas the Nationalists gave the Roman salute.[9]
The graphic symbol was popularised in 1948 by Taller de Gráfica Popular, a print shop in Mexico that used art to advance revolutionary social causes.[10] Its use spread through the United States in the 1960s after artist and activist Frank Cieciorka produced a simplified version for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee: this version was subsequently used by Students for a Democratic Society and the Black Power movement.[11]
The raised right fist was frequently used in posters produced during the May 1968 revolt in France, such as La Lutte continue, depicting a factory chimney topped with a clenched fist.[12][13][14]
Robin Morgan designed the feminist symbol of a raised fist within the Venus symbol for a protest of the 1969 Miss America pageant, where it was popularized.[15][16]
A raised fist incorporating the outline of the state of Wisconsin, as designed in 2011, is meant for union protests against the state rescinding collective bargaining.[17]
Logo
The raised fist logo generally carries the same symbolism as a hand gesture. It was an important symbol of workers rights and labor movements, as well as specific labor actions, such as strikes, boycotts, and walk-outs.
Notable examples include the fist and rose, a white fist holding a red rose, used by the Socialist International and some socialist or social democratic parties, such as the French Socialist Party and the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party.[8] The fist can represent ethnic solidarity, such as in the Black Power fist of Black nationalism and the Black Panther Party, a Black Marxist group in the 1960s,[18] or the White Power fist of White nationalism.[19] A Black fist logo was also adopted by the northern soul music subculture. Loyalists in Northern Ireland occasionally use a red clenched fist on murals depicting the Red Hand of Ulster, which is also featured on the flag of Ulster.[20] Irish republicans, on the other hand, have been seen displaying raised fists.[21]
The image gallery shows how a raised fist is used in visual communication. Combined with another graphic element, a raised fist is used to convey polysemous gestures and opposing forces.[22] Depending on the elements combined, the meaning of the gesture changes in tone and intention. For example, a hammer and sickle combined with a raised right fist is part of communist symbolism, while the same right fist combined with a Venus symbol represents Feminism, and combined with a book, it represents some librarians who oppose digital rights management. The Gonzo fist emblem, characterized by two thumbs and four fingers holding a peyote button, was originally used in Hunter S. Thompson's 1970 campaign for sheriff of Aspen, Colorado. It has become a symbol of Thompson and gonzo journalism as a whole.
The Unicode character for the raised fist is U+270A ✊ RAISED FIST.
Solidarity cartoon 1917
Solidarity cartoon 1917
Civil liberties poster 1940
Civil liberties poster 1940
Painted symbol of the Power Fist
Painted symbol of the Power Fist
Fist and rose
Fist and rose
Feminism
Feminism
Masculism
Masculism
A red fist with thumbs on both sides clutches a peyote button.
The "Gonzo fist"
Otpor!
Otpor!
Kach and Kahane Chai
Kach and Kahane Chai
Piotr Uklański, Untitled (Fist) 2008
Piotr Uklański, Untitled (Fist) 2008
Stand with Wisconsin, 2011 (Wisconsin AFL-CIO)
Stand with Wisconsin, 2011 (Wisconsin AFL-CIO)
Librarians Against DRM
Librarians Against DRM
White power fist, used by white nationalists and white supremacists, popularised by the band Skrewdriver.
White power fist, used by white nationalists and white supremacists, popularised by the band Skrewdriver.
Salute
Different movements sometimes use different terms to describe the raised fist salute: amongst communists and socialists, raised right fist is sometimes called the red salute, whereas in the United States it is widely known as the Black Power salute due to use by many African-American activists. The Rotfrontkämpferbund paramilitary organization of Communist Party of Germany used the right hand fist salute as early as 1924.[23] By this time, the Soviet Union had already established the use of a traditional Russian military salute. During the Spanish Civil War, it was sometimes known as the anti-fascist salute. A letter from the Spanish Civil War stated: "...the raised fist which greets you in Salud is not just a gesture—it means life and liberty being fought for and a greeting of solidarity with the democratic peoples of the world."[24]
At the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, medal winners John Carlos and Tommie Smith gave the raised fist salute during the American national anthem as a sign of black power, and as a protest on behalf of the Olympic Project for Human Rights. They were banned from further Olympic activities by the IOC, as the rules then in place prohibited any political statements at the Olympics. The event was one of the most overtly political statements[25] in the history of the modern Olympic Games. Tommie Smith stated in his autobiography, "Silent Gesture", that the salute was not a Black Power salute, but in fact a human rights salute.[26]
Nelson Mandela also used the clenched right fist salute upon his release from Victor Verster Prison in 1990.[8]
The raised right fist is used by officials in People's Republic of China when being sworn into office.[27]
Psychologist Oliver James has suggested that the appeal of the salute is that it allows the individual to indicate that they "intend to meet malevolent, massive institutional force with force of (their) own", and that they are bound in struggle with others against common oppression.[8]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raised_fist
https://www.facebook.com/4williamdunn/posts/pfbid02D3r187JeNqz5kLj9a54NwZBnKZip22SS8uTvTp4PFAnB7o41YY3uuoqxhUZyvdAAl
Trump posts AI-generated photo of himself as pope, drawing internet outrage
By Andrea Shalal
May 3, 20252:21 PM PDTUpdated 12 hours ago
Summary
Trump and his wife Melania attended funeral of Pope Francis
Image shows Trump in white paper vestments
Former Italian PM blasts 'shameful' post
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida, May 2 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated photo showing himself as the pope ahead of this week's gathering of cardinals to choose a new leader of the 1.4-billion-strong Catholic Church, and just days after he joked he would "like to be pope".
Trump, who is not a Catholic and does not attend church regularly, posted the image on his Truth Social platform late on Friday, less than a week after attending the funeral of Pope Francis, who died at 88 last month. The White House then reposted it on its official X account.
The image shows an unsmiling Trump seated in an ornate chair, dressed in white papal vestments and headdress, with right forefinger raised.
The irreverent posting drew instant outrage on X, including from Republicans against Trump, a group that describes itself as "pro-democracy conservative Republicans fighting Trump & Trumpism." The group reposted the image, calling it "a blatant insult to Catholics and a mockery of their faith".
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni declined to comment on the image during a briefing with journalists about the process of electing a new pope, which begins on May 7.
Former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi wrote on X: “This is an image that offends believers, insults institutions and shows that the leader of the global right enjoys being a clown. In the meantime, the American economy risks recession and the dollar loses value."
Closer to home, the Catholic bishops of New York state also expressed their displeasure on X.
"There is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr. President," they wrote. "We just buried our beloved Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to elect a new successor of St. Peter. Do not mock us."
Trump on Tuesday had jokingly said he would be his own first choice to become pope, before adding that there was a "very good" candidate in New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
Dolan, the archbishop of New York, is not on the short list of possible contenders for the top spot, but it does include another American, Cardinal Joseph Tobin, archbishop of Newark, New Jersey. There has never been a pope from the United States.
In mid-February, both Trump and the official White House social media accounts posted a different AI-generated image of the president wearing a crown and captioned "CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!"
In West Palm Beach, Debbie Macchia, 60, stood waiting with a dozen other supporters as Trump's motorcade arrived at his golf club on Saturday morning.
"He was clearly joking. Clearly joking," said Macchia, who is Jewish. "But I wouldn't want to see them do anything sacrilegious with the pope, or anything."
Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Additional reporting by Joshua McElwee in Vatican City, Editing by Ross Colvin and Daniel Wallis
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/trump-posts-ai-generated-photo-himself-pope-2025-05-03/
Revelation 17:17-18
1599 Geneva Bible
17 [a]For God hath put in their hearts to fulfill his will, and to do with one consent for to give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God be fulfilled.
18 And that woman which thou sawest, is that [b]great city which reigned over the kings of the earth.
Read full chapter
Footnotes
Revelation 17:17 A reason rendered from the chief efficient cause, which is the providence of God, by which alone S. John by inversion of order affirmeth to have come to pass, both that the Kings should execute upon the harlot, that which pleased God, and which he declared in the verse next beforegoing: and also that by one consent and counsel, they should give their kingdom unto the beast, etc., verses 13, 14. For as these being blinded have before depended upon the beck of the beast that lifteth up the harlot, so it is said that afterward it shall come to pass, that they shall turn back, and shall fall away from her when their hearts shall be turned into better state by the grace and mercy of God.
Revelation 17:18 That is, Rome that great City, or only City (as Justinian calleth it) the King and head whereof was then the Emperor, but now the Pope, since that the condition of the beast was changed.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2017%3A17-18&version=GNV
EL SABOR DE HEREJIA: THE EDICT OF 1525, THE ALUMBRADOS
AND THE INQUISITORS’ USAGE OF LOCURA
By
Javier A. Montoya
May 2010
Chair: Nina Caputo
Major: History
The alumbrados of Spain were a mystical Christian movement that arose in the 1510s. Initially enjoying noble patronage and an environment of spiritual exploration fostered by the reforms of Cardinal Cisneros, the alumbrados spread their ideas throughout Castile. Led by charismatic female spiritual leaders or beatas, the alumbrados’ brief era of success ended when two of its leaders came before the Tribunal of Toledo in 1524. With a membership consisting mostly of second-generation conversos, the alumbrados advocated an interiorized approach to Christianity under the aegis of dejamiento. The meditational practice of dejamiento called upon its practitioners to “abandon” themselves to God and His will effectively releasing themselves from their ties (ataduras) to the material world that included the Church and the priesthood.
By 1525, convinced of the heretical nature of alumbradismo, the Inquisitors published El edicto contra los alumbrados consisting of 48 alumbrado Propositions followed by official Inquisitorial refutation and condemnation. The Edict of 1525 presented the alumbrados as a dangerous group of heretics in its attempt to delegitimize their beliefs.
This study focuses on the Inquisitors’ diction in their responses to and qualifications of the alumbrado Propositions, specifically their usage of the words loca (crazy) and locura
6
(madness). The usage of loca is then placed within a discourse about the attitudes prevalent in Castilian society towards conversos and beatas with the understanding that stereotyping and general dislike and fear of both groups contributed much to the Inquisitors’ reactions to the alumbrado Propositions. The Edict also reveals the Inquisitors’ interpretative difficulties in classifying alumbradismo and placing it within their continuum of heresy. The usage of loca as a negative qualifier in Inquisitorial responses was meant to highlight the danger the movement posed to Catholic orthodoxy. The alumbrados challenged the Inquisitors’ cosmological views and pre-established categories of heresy. In turn, the Inquisitors designated the alumbrados a novelty placing them in a third space of heresy, one neither crypto-Jewish nor Protestant and lying somewhere between heterodoxy and orthodoxy.
The analysis of the intertwined factors of the Inquisitorial portrayal of the alumbrados and the alumbrados’ status as conversos and women is placed within an overall discourse that addresses the historiographic problems that historians of alumbradismo have faced. As such, the alumbrados are presented as free as possible from labels of heresy or comparison to other contemporary religious movements. Inquisitorial testimonies and documents remain the primary sources of alumbrado history, however, this thesis attempts to set aside the Inquisitors’ interpretation of alumbradismo when representing their ideas. The alumbrados then function as an example of the growing spiritual and religious unrest prevalent in sixteenth century Europe and as an example of a uniquely converso understanding of Christianity.
https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/uf/e0/04/13/85/00001/montoya_j.pdf
Politics
Vance says it was "pretty crazy" that he met Pope Francis in his last 24 hours
By Kaia Hubbard
April 23, 2025 / 9:58 AM EDT / CBS News
Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday that it was "pretty crazy" that he was among the last officials to meet with Pope Francis before his death earlier this week.
"When I saw him, I didn't know that he had less than 24 hours still on this earth," Vance told reporters in Agra, India. "I think it was a great blessing."
The vice president is on a four-day trip in India with his wife Usha, the first Hindu American second lady, whose parents emigrated to the U.S. from India. Vance's visit with his family comes after they traveled to Italy last week to participate in Holy Week events. Vance noted that plans remain in flux about whether he will attend the pope's funeral in the coming days.
The vice president outlined his brief visit with Francis on Easter Sunday, saying he knew the pope was "very ill," but he "didn't realize how sick he was."
"The thing that I will always remember Pope Francis for is that he was a great pastor," Vance said. "People on the margins, poor people, people suffering from diseases, they saw in Pope Francis an advocate and I think, a true expression of Christian love."
Vance added that the pontiff "affected a lot of lives," saying that he tries to remember "that I was lucky that I got to shake his hand and tell him that I pray for him every day, because I did and I do."
Vance and Francis' meeting came after the two men had sharp disagreements on immigration as the pontiff had long condemned the Trump administration's approach. Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, told reporters Wednesday that he's aware of the disagreements the pope had with some of the Trump administration's policies, while noting that he would not "soil the man's legacy by talking about politics."
On the selection of the next pope, the vice president said he would "say a prayer for wisdom" for the Cardinals, saying that "I want them to pick somebody who will be good for the world's Catholics."
"But I'll let them make that decision, and obviously they're entitled to do so," he added.
The vice president's trip to India comes amid President Trump's recent actions on tariffs. Vance arrived in India on Monday and met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after which the leaders touted progress on trade talks.
The vice president told reporters Wednesday that "we're making progress across the board," though he said of the trade discussions more broadly that it's "a little bit too early to prejudge, to say what any of these deals is going to look like."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pope-francis-death-jd-vance-meeting/
James David Vance (born James Donald Bowman;[a] August 2, 1984) is an American politician, author, attorney, and Marine Corps veteran who is the 50th vice president of the United States serving under President Donald Trump. A member of the Republican Party, he represented Ohio in the U.S. Senate from 2023 to 2025.
Vance was born in Middletown, Ohio. After high school, Vance joined the Marine Corps, where he served as a military journalist from 2003 to 2007, and was deployed to the Iraq War for six months in 2005. He graduated from Ohio State University with a bachelor's degree in 2009 and Yale Law School with a law degree in 2013. He practiced briefly as a corporate lawyer before embarking on a career in the tech industry as a venture capitalist. His memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, was published in 2016[2] and adapted into a film in 2020.
Vance won the 2022 United States Senate election in Ohio, defeating Democratic nominee Tim Ryan. After initially opposing Donald Trump's candidacy in the 2016 election, Vance became a strong Trump supporter during Trump's first presidency. In July 2024, Trump selected Vance as his running mate before the Republican National Convention. He served as Ohio's senator until his resignation in preparation to assume the vice presidency in January 2025. Vance is the third-youngest vice president in U.S. history, as well as the first millennial to hold the office.
Vance has been characterized as a national conservative and right-wing populist, and he describes himself as a member of the postliberal right. His political positions include opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage and gun control. Vance is an outspoken critic of childlessness and has credited the influence of Catholic theology on his sociopolitical positions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JD_Vance
Is the Catholic church ready for its first African Pope?
As world leaders gather in Rome for Pope Francis’s funeral on Saturday, many Catholics are wondering if the church could soon elect its first black pope. With Africa home to one in five Catholics, the idea of a pope from the continent is gaining ground.
Issued on: 26/04/2025 - 09:01
By:
RFI
Follow
Since Francis’s death over Easter, one name gaining attention in the Vatican is Ghana’s Cardinal Peter Turkson.
In 2010, Turkson said he wasn’t ready to become pope and that the church might not be ready either. "I wouldn't want to be that first black pope. I think he'll have a rough time," he said.
But Africa’s share of the Catholic population is growing. The continent is now home to 20 percent of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, as the church struggles to hold on to followers in increasingly secular Europe.
Some now believe the time could be right for the first black pope.
A spiritual leader
Cardinal Peter Turkson, 76, grew up in a small town in what was then the Gold Coast, under British rule. He was the fourth of 10 children. His father worked in a mine and as a carpenter, while his mother sold vegetables at the market.
Turkson studied in seminaries in Ghana and New York, was ordained in 1975, then taught in Ghana. He later completed advanced Biblical studies in Rome.
Pope John Paul II made him archbishop of Cape Coast in 1992 and, in 2003, the first cardinal in Ghana’s history.
His rise continued under John Paul’s successor, Benedict XVI, who brought him to the Vatican in 2009 and made him head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
There, he became one of the pope’s closest advisors, working on issues like climate change and economic justice.
Turkson is seen as having both a strong connection to local congregations in Ghana and experience leading Vatican offices. His communication skills have also been praised.
Other African contenders
Turkson is not the only African name being mentioned as the church prepares for a conclave to choose its next leader. He would also not be the first African pontiff – Pope Victor I, from North Africa, led the church from 189 to 199.
"There has been this sense which has built up that the pope, if he is going to be a global authority, needs to come from the global church," said Miles Pattenden, a historian of Catholicism at Oxford University.
But Pattenden also said there is no reason to believe the next pope will follow Francis’s more liberal approach.
Francis often called for reform but didn’t always deliver. That middle ground might appeal to African candidates, some of whom have been called too conservative by critics, said Cristina Traina, a religious studies professor at Fordham University in New York.
One example is Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea, a traditionalist who compared abortion, "Islamic fanaticism" and homosexuality to Nazi ideology. He could attract support from more conservative cardinals.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo has been mentioned. He led efforts to oppose the blessing of same-sex couples in Africa after Francis encouraged acceptance of such unions elsewhere.
A long time coming
Francis, who was from Argentina, worked to make the Vatican reflect the diversity of its members. African cardinals now make up 12 percent of those eligible to vote in the conclave, up from eight percent at the last papal election.
"It would be almost impossible to imagine the world accepting an African pope without this transition of Pope Francis having been from Argentina," said Traina.
Africa still has fewer voting cardinals than some think it should.
Some African Catholics also feel left out. A Congolese priest, who did not want to be named, told the French news agency AFP: "Even if it isn't obvious among our European brothers, discrimination is still a reality that we often don't talk about."
He said the church has made progress, but there is a reason no African has been pope in 1,500 years.
An African pope could bring new ideas to the church’s current challenges, including the ban on married priests, said Traina.
"It has always been on our lips how we wish to have an African pope," said Father Paul Maji, a priest in Abuja, Nigeria. But he added that Africans should not be "sentimental" about where the next pope comes from.
Sylvain Badibanga, dean of the theology faculty at the Catholic University of Congo, told AFP: "We shouldn't think 'it's our turn'. It's God's turn."
Archbishop Dieudonné Nzapalainga of Bangui, made a cardinal in 2016 after Francis visited the Central African Republic, will vote in a conclave for the first time.
"This is not about regional, continental, or even personal interests," he told RFI, adding that cardinals must think about the broader interests of the Catholic church.
As his name came up again before the 2013 conclave that chose Francis, Turkson said he could become pope "if it's the will of God".
(with newswires)
https://www.rfi.fr/en/international/20250426-is-the-catholic-church-ready-for-an-african-pope
Presidential elections are scheduled to be held in the United States on November 7, 2028, to elect the president and vice president of the United States for a term of four years.
In the 2024 elections, the Republican Party gained a majority of seats in the House of Representatives and Senate. Incumbent president Donald Trump won a non-consecutive second term; per the limits set by the 22nd Amendment, he is constitutionally barred from being elected president again.[1]
Background
See also: 2024 United States elections
The Republican Party returned to power in the United States with a government trifecta in January 2025 following the 2024 election. Trump, who was elected president in 2016 but lost a re-election bid in 2020 to Joe Biden, and JD Vance, a then-senator from Ohio defeated vice president Kamala Harris, who began her campaign following Biden's exit from the 2024 election, and Minnesota governor Tim Walz. Trump's victory was credited to a post-pandemic surge in inflation,[a] a migrant crisis at the U.S.–Mexico border,[b] and a global anti-incumbent backlash.[8][9][10] In addition, Republicans secured control of the Senate, flipping four seats and earning a three seat majority, while also retaining a House majority, though the party's majority narrowed to three seats after losing two seats.[11]
Electoral system
Main article: United States Electoral College
See also: United States presidential primary and Primary elections in the United States
The president and vice president of the United States are elected through the Electoral College, determined by the number of senators and representatives with an additional three representatives for Washington, D.C. A majority of 270 votes is needed to win the election. Forty-eight states use a winner-take-all system, in which states award all of their electors to the winner of the popular vote. In Maine and Nebraska, two votes are allocated to the winner of the popular vote, while each of the individual congressional districts have one vote. Electoral votes are certified by state electors in December and by Congress on January 6.[12] Presidential candidates are selected in a presidential primary, conducted through primary elections run by state governments or caucuses run by state parties which bind convention delegates to candidates.[13] A brokered convention occurs when a candidate does not receive a majority of votes on the first round of voting,[14] or when a candidate withdraws.[15]
Election Day in the United States has been held on the first Tuesday that falls after the first Monday in November.[16] Previously, states could determine their own Election Day prior to the first Wednesday in December. The 2028 presidential election will occur on November 7, 2028.[17]
Eligibility
The United States Constitution limits occupancy of the presidency to individuals who are at least thirty-five, who have been a resident in the United States for at least fourteen years, and who are a natural-born citizen.[18] Section three of the Fourteenth Amendment prevents current and former federal, state, and military officials from holding office—including the presidency—if they have "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the United States;[19] in March 2024, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Trump v. Anderson that former president Donald Trump could seek office after challenges to his ballot eligibility were raised by several state attorneys general.[20] A convicted felon may serve as president.[21] Elon Musk, who emerged as a political influencer in the 2024 presidential election, is ineligible to serve as president as he was born in South Africa and is a naturalized citizen.[22]
Trump is ineligible to be elected to a third term, as the Twenty-Second Amendment forbids any person from being elected president more than twice.[23] Nonetheless, he has repeatedly suggested running for a third term, an idea supported by several of his allies, including Steve Bannon.[24] In January 2025, Tennessee representative Andy Ogles proposed a resolution to amend the Twenty-Second Amendment, allowing for presidents who have served two non-consecutive terms to seek a third term. The verbiage of the amendment would prevent living presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, all currently ineligible under the 22nd Amendment, from running for a third term.[25] At CPAC 2025, conservative groups, such as the Third Term Project, supported the Ogles resolution and promoted the idea of Trump running for an as-yet unconstitutional third term.[26][27] In response, New York Democratic representative Dan Goldman planned to introduce a resolution affirming the Twenty-Second Amendment.[28]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2028_United_States_presidential_election
Kamala Devi Harris (English: /ˈkɑːmələ ˈdeɪvi/ ⓘ,[1] born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and attorney who has been the 49th and current vice president of the United States since 2021, serving under President Joe Biden. Harris is the Democratic presidential nominee in the 2024 United States presidential election. She is the first female vice president of the United States, making her the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history. She is also the first African American and first Asian American vice president. From 2017 to 2021, she represented California in the United States Senate. Before that, she was Attorney General of California from 2011 to 2017.
Born in Oakland, California, Harris graduated from Howard University and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She began her law career in the office of the district attorney of Alameda County. She was recruited to the San Francisco District Attorney's Office and later to the office of the city attorney of San Francisco. She was elected district attorney of San Francisco in 2003 and attorney general of California in 2010, and reelected as attorney general in 2014. As the San Francisco district attorney and the attorney general of California, Harris was the first woman, the first African American, and the first Asian American to hold each office.
Harris was the junior U.S. senator from California from 2017 to 2021. She won the 2016 Senate election, becoming the second Black woman and first South Asian American U.S. senator. As a senator, Harris advocated for stricter gun control laws, the DREAM Act, federal legalization of cannabis, and reforms to healthcare and taxation. She gained a national profile for her pointed questioning of Trump administration officials during Senate hearings, including Trump's second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.
Harris sought the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination in 2019, but withdrew from the race before the primaries. Biden selected her as his running mate, and their ticket defeated the incumbent president and vice president, Donald Trump and Mike Pence, in the 2020 election. Presiding over an evenly split Senate upon entering office, Harris played a crucial role as president of the Senate. She cast more tie-breaking votes than any other vice president, which helped pass bills such as the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 stimulus package and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. After Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential election, Harris launched her campaign with Biden's endorsement and soon became the presumptive nominee. On August 6, 2024, she chose Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, as her running mate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris
Devī (/ˈdeɪvi/;[1] Sanskrit: देवी) is the Sanskrit word for 'goddess'; the masculine form is deva. Devi and deva mean 'heavenly, divine, anything of excellence', and are also gender-specific terms for a deity in Hinduism.
The concept and reverence for goddesses appears in the Vedas, which were composed around the 2nd millennium BCE. However, they did not play a vital role in that era.[2] Goddesses such as Durga, Kali, Lakshmi, Parvati, Radha, Saraswati and Sita have continued to be revered in the modern era.[2] The medieval era Puranas witness a major expansion in mythology and literature associated with Devi, with texts such as the Devi Mahatmya, wherein she manifests as the ultimate truth and supreme power. She has inspired the Shaktism tradition of Hinduism. Further, Devi is viewed as central in the Hindu traditions of Shaktism and Shaivism.[2][3]
Etymology
Devi and deva are Sanskrit terms found in Vedic literature around the 3rd millennium BCE. Deva is masculine, and the related feminine equivalent is devi.[4] Monier-Williams translates it as 'heavenly, divine, terrestrial things of high excellence, exalted, shining ones'.[5][6] Etymologically, a cognate of devi is Latin dea.[7] When capitalised, Devi maata refers to the mother goddess in Hinduism.[8] Deva is short for devatā and devi for devika.[5]
According to Douglas Harper, the etymological root dev- means "a shining one", from *div-, "to shine", it is an Indo-European cognate of the Greek dios, Gothic divine and Latin deus (Old Latin deivos); see also *Dyēus.[9]
A synonym for the word Devi in the Vedas is Bhagavati. Bhagavatī (Devanagari: भगवती, IAST: Bhagavatī), is an Indian epithet of Sanskrit origin, used as an honorific title for goddesses in Hinduism and Buddhism. In Hinduism, it is primarily used to address the goddesses Lakshmi and Durga. In Buddhism, it is used to refer to several Mahayana Buddhist female deities, like Cundā.[10]
History
The worship of Devi-like deities dates back to period of Indus Valley civilisation.[11][12]
The Devīsūkta of the Rigveda (10.125.1 to 10.125.8) is among the most studied hymns declaring that the ultimate reality is a goddess:[13][14]
I have created all worlds at my will without being urged by any higher Being, and dwell within them. I permeate the earth and heaven, and all created entities with my greatness and dwell in them as eternal and infinite consciousness.
— Devi Sukta, Rigveda 10.125.8, Translated by June McDaniel[15][16]
The Vedas name numerous cosmic goddesses such as Devi (power), Prithvi (earth), Aditi (cosmic moral order), Vāc (sound), Nirṛti (destruction), Ratri (night) and Aranyani (forest); bounty goddesses such as Dinsana, Raka, Puramdhi, Parendi, Bharati and Mahi are among others are mentioned in the Rigveda.[2]: 6–17, 55–64 However, the goddesses are not discussed as frequently as gods (devas).[2] Devi appears in late Vedic texts dated to be pre-Buddhist, but verses dedicated to her do not suggest that her characteristics were fully developed in the Vedic era.[2]: 18–19 All gods and goddesses are distinguished in Vedic times,[2]: 18 but in post-Vedic texts, particularly in the early medieval era literature, they are ultimately seen as aspects or manifestations of one Devi, the Supreme Power.[17]
Devi is the supreme being in the Shakta tradition of Hinduism; in the Smarta tradition, she is one of the five primary forms of Brahman that is revered.[18][19] In other Hindu traditions, Devi embodies the active energy and power of Deva, and they always appear together complementing each other. Examples of this are Parvati with Shiva in Shaivism, Saraswati with Brahma in Brahmanism and Lakshmi with Vishnu, Sita with Rama and Radha with Krishna in Vaishnavism.[20][21][22]
Devi-inspired philosophy is propounded in many Hindu texts such as the Devi Upanishad, which teaches that Shakti is essentially Brahman (ultimate metaphysical Reality) and that from her arises prakṛti (matter) and purusha (consciousness) and that she is bliss and non-bliss, the Vedas and what is different from it, the born and the unborn and all of the universe. Shakti is Parvati, Shiva’s wife. [23] She is also mentioned as the creative power of Shiva in Tripura Upanishad, Bahvricha Upanishad and Guhyakali Upanishad.[13]
Devi identifies herself in the Devi Upanishad as Brahman in her reply to the gods stating that she rules the world, blesses devotees with riches, that she is the supreme deity to whom all worship is to be offered and that she infuses Ātman in every soul.[23] Devi asserts that she is the creator of earth and heaven and resides there.[13] Her creation of the sky as father and the seas as the mother is reflected as the 'Inner Supreme Self'.[13] Her creations are not prompted by any higher being and she resides in all her creations. She is, states Devi, the eternal and infinite consciousness engulfing earth and heaven, and 'all forms of bliss and non-bliss, knowledge and ignorance, Brahman and Non-Brahman'. The tantric aspect in Devi Upanishad, says June McDaniel, is the usage of the terms yantra, bindu, bija, mantra, shakti and chakra.[13]
Among the major world religions, the concept of Goddess in Hinduism as the divine feminine has had the strongest presence since ancient times.[24]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devi
The name Monita has its roots in India and is derived from the Sanskrit word manita, which means 'honored' or 'respected.' This ancient name reflects the cultural traditions and values of Indian society, where respect and honor hold great significance. Monita has been prominent in Indian history since ancient times, often given to those who were esteemed for their noble character and high social standing. In historical texts and scriptures, the name Monita is often associated with individuals who were recognized for their wisdom, integrity, and leadership qualities.
In modern-day usage, the name Monita continues to evoke a sense of honor and respect. It is a popular name choice among families who value tradition and wish to bestow upon their child a name that reflects these virtues. Monita is often given to female children, symbolizing the strength and dignity they possess. In some cases, the name Monita is also used as a name, further emphasizing the family's heritage and the importance they place on respect and honor.
Overall, the name Monita has a rich history rooted in Indian culture and embodies the values of honor and respect. From ancient times to the present day, this name has stood as a testament to the qualities that society holds in high regard and continues to be cherished by families who wish to pass on these values to future generations.
https://www.ancestry.com/first-name-meaning/monita
Monita
A Latin word meaning "instructions":
Monita, work by Abbot Porcarius I of Lérins (c. 500)
Monita Secreta, an alleged code of instructions of the Jesuits
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monita
The Seoket Monitor op the Jesuits, embracing a brief
history of this Society of Thugs, with their secret instruc
tions and code, with an introdnction by Charles Sauvestre,
the whole translated from the Spanish. Copy now in the
hands of the translator, Edwin A. Sherman, the compiler of
this work.
PART SECOND.
CONTENTS.
Why Abraham Lincoln, the Martyr President, was assassi
nated; the initial point of the conspiracy against him by the
Jesuits in Illinois in 1856; the Papal conspiracy against him
and the Union while he was President, and the tragic fate of
the victim of their foul plot, which was consummated on the
14th of April, 1865.
PART THIRD.
The Papal Syllabus of Errors, by Pope Pius IX.; extracts
from Den's and Kenricks' Theology; Bishop Dupanloup's
tirade against Freemasonry, and other miscellaneous matters
of interest to Freemasons and other fraternal associations.
PREFACE
BY THE TRANSLATOR.
In presenting to our readers this translation from the
Spanish of the "Monita Secreta " (Secret Monitor) of
the Jesuits, it is but due that a clear and truthful statement
of how the work came into our hands should be given.
In the month of August of 1870, the Secretariat of all the
bodies of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freema
sonry in the City of San Francisco, California, had been
placed in our hands, and we then occupied an office, which
had been assigned to us, in the Masonic Temple of this city.
Scarcely had we then entered upon our duties, when one
morning in the month of September, 1870, a rap was heard
at our door, and, on opening it, a stranger, feeble in body,
with a pallid face bearing the evidence of great suffering and
of sickness, inquired if that was the office of the Secretary of
the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, which we answered in the
affirmative and invited him in and gave him a seat.
He then took from his pocket a package of papers, covered
with leather and oil-silk, which he carefully unwrapped and
presented for our inspection. Being in Spanish and Latin,
we found upon examination that they were his patents or
certificates of the various degrees of the Scottish Rite of
Freemasonry, duly signed and attested by the officers, and
bearing the seal of the Supreme Council of the Tbirty-third
Degree of Peru .
Upon further examination, we found the
stranger to be a "Brother of the Light," and, with other let
ters and credentials which he bore, that he was a gentleman
of refinement and culture, and a member of and explorer for
various scientific societies in Europe, but more especially for
the Archaeological Society of France, with its principal seat at
Paris, and with its members and correspondents scattered
throughout Europe and America. He was a Frenchman,
and, if we mistake not, a Huguenot. He spoke English, but
rather brokenly, yet correctly in grammar and diction. He
inquired where our Scottish Rite bodies met, and desired to
see the hall where onr brethren of that Kite assembled. We
conducted him up the stairs, which he slowly ascended to the
ante-room of the Chapter Hall, where, pausing a few mo
ments, we then entered the main hall, and with uncovered
head he reverently approached the altar, knelt and embraced
it, and bowed his head in silent prayer. We were peculiarly
struck with his manner and attitude, and looked on in silence?
wondering what he would do next. He then raised his head,
and, reaching behind, took out a handkerchief from his pocket
in the skirt of his coat and spread it out upon the altar. He
then reached his hand to the back of his neck inside of his
collar and slowly pulled up and out a soiled Masonic Rose
Croix apron and spread it out upon the handkerchief upon
the altar, and then clasping his hands together and raising
his eyes towards heaven, offered a prayer in French of grati
tude and thanksgiving. These strange proceedings, at such
a time and to which Americans are not accustomed, greatly
intensified our curiosity, and the first thought that passed
through our mind was, Is he a crank? While waiting
for him to finish his devotions, we observed that the
apron was badly stained and had several holes in it, and
there was something about it which held our attention fixed
upon it. At last he arose, and we asked of him the meaning
of all this, which was strange to us, never having witnessed
anything of this sort before, we having then been a Mason
nearly seventeen years. We were aware of the difference in
the rituals of foreign jurisdictions, and the customs of our
foreign brethren, especially those of the Latin races, and
could make an allowance for their exuberance and intensity
of feehng in their affection and ardor for Freemasonry. He
replied: "If you will return to your room down-stairs, where
it is warmer than it is in this hall, I will explain to you all."
We;then returned to the office, and he, looking to see if the
door was bolted and secure, asked us to assist him in remov
ing his coat and vest, and we did so. Then pulling up his
'•
outer and under shirts, he showed us his back, and what a
sight was there presented to us! There were several bullet
wounds and those made by stabs with a knife or poinard,
but nearly healed, two or three of which were still slightly
suppurating. We said to him, "You need a surgeon."
Oh, no," he answered, "I am pretty near well now." We
then assisted him to adjust his clothing, which having done,
we then asked of him to explain to us the history and mean
ing of all this, which he dil in the following manner, which
is given as correctly as possible and as our recollection serves
us. He said: "I am a mea)ber of various scientific societies
in Europe, one of which is the Archaeological Society of
France, whose seat is in Paris, and of which country I am a
native. This society has many corresponding members in
other countries, and is engaged in making archaeological and
antiquarian researches in various parts of the globe. As one
of its scientific explorers, I was assigned to Spanish America,
especially to the countries of Chili, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador,
New Granada and Venezuela. After having laid out my plan
of exploration, I directed my principal attention to the west
ern slope of the Andean Kange in South America, and to
that portion in northeastern Chili, Bolivia and southeastern
Peru, as that presented the most interesting unexplored ter
ritory for my research and examination. Every facility had
been accorded to me by the principal government officials of
those countries; the people of Chili being the most libera^
and enlightened, while those of Peru and Bolivia were the
most superstitious and priest-ridden of any under the sun.
I was greatly indebted to my Masonic brethren at Callao and
Lima for kind and fraternal courtesies and hospitalities ex
tended to me, and after bidding them adieu, I entered upon
my tour of exploration and started for my destination to ex
amine the ruins of ancient Temples of the Sun and of towns
and cities long since perished, which were once populated by
the subjects of the Incas, and destroyed by the ravages of
war with other nations, the invasion by the Spaniards under
Pizarro, and the terrible temblors or earthquakes which bad
8
helped in the general destruction which had been wrought at
the hands of the invaders, both of their native continent and
from across the Atlantic from the Sierra Morena of Old
Spain —a people now remotely and sparsely settled, except
ing in the few cities and towns, but nearly the whole sunk in
ignorance, and both soul and body fettered and bound to a
licentious and merciless priesthood, where every cathedral
and church was a citadel and fortification, and every monas
tery a barracks garrisoned with lustful and armed monks,
with innumerable nunneries as harems for the gratification
of their passions and lustful desires. Morals were at a low
ebb, and a compagnon de noche was furnished with the gen
eral bill of fare to the guest of the hostelry, to be accepted or
not, according to the taste or wish of the sojourning traveller.
"Having determined the point of my destination and com
menced my explorations, the nearest habitation to the locality
of the ruins which I had selected to examine was nearly six
miles, and, at times when being excessively fatigued with my
labor, I found that it would be necessary to camp upon the
spot, and then afterwards where I was domiciled I could
write up my reports from the sketches I had made and the
notes taken down. The house which I occupied while so en
gaged was built of massive adobe walls (or unburnt brick),
nearly four feet thick, one story in height, and the windows
without glass were barred with iron grating and shutters in
side. It had originally been constructed during the Spanish
occupation of the country, and evidently been built as an
outpost fortification for military purposes, against the inroads
of the mountain tribes of Indians, with whom a constant
predatory warfare had been maintained, some of whom, no
doubt, were the descendants of the original occupants of the
country, the ruins of whose labors I had undertaken to ex
plore.
"The room which had been assigned to me by the family
who occupied this house was about thirty feet square, with
bare walls, and a seat of the same material (adobe) extending
nearly around the room, whitewashed, and with patches of
9
the furniture knocked off in many places. The cama or bed
consisted of an adobe bedstead laid up in masonry to about
the same height and shape as an ordinary blacksmith's forge,
but somewhat larger and covered with a very large bullock's
hide. Owing to the frequent changes of the bed linen and
to remove the many lively occupants of this downy couch,
repeated sweepings of the bedstead had made an incline
plane inwards, with a narrow gutter next the wall. In that
country, as it used to be in California, every traveller is ex
pected to Carry his blankets, take up his bed and walk when
necessary. Some cheap pictures of the Virgin and saints
and a crucifix adorned the walls, and with a chair and table
of rude manufacture, nailed and screwed together with thongs
of rawhide, my furnished apartments were complete. Dur
ing my absence at the ruins, my room was not unfrequently
occupied by other travelling gentry, passing through the
country.
" It was on my return upon one occasion that I learned
that a distinguished 'Obispo Padre de Jesus,' or Jesuit Bishop
Father, had also stopped one night and had occupied my
room and bed, and had left there only two days previous to
my return. Having thrown my poncho and cloak upon the
bed, I made my ablutions, satisfied my hunger, and went to
work transcribing from my notes and arranging my sketches
in order. While so engaged, I had occasion to rise and go
to my bed to get some things out of the pocket in my cloak,
and in doing so I disarranged the rawhide mattress, and my
attention was directed to a small package in the gutter of the
bedstead next the wail, which had been covered up. I un
rolled it, and to my great astonishment I found that I had
made a great discovery of the ' Secret Manual of Instructions,
together with the ceremonies of induction of members of the
Society of the Jesuits,' printed in Latin, and bearing the
seal and signature and attecitation of the General and Secre
tary of the Order at Rome, embracing also the co-lateral
branch of the Society of San Fedistas, or Fathers of the Holy
Faith. Accompanying the same were manuscript additions
10
and amendtuents made to the general work. Carefully con
cealing the fact of my discovery, I immediately set to work
and in stenographic hand copied the entire woik from the
Latin into French, and, knowing that it would be exceeding
ly dangerous to be found with the original in my possession,
if not positively fatal, I wrapped the whole up with the
' *
same care with which I had undone it, replaced it in the cor.
ner of the gutter of my bedstead and pushed the rawhide
mattress over it in the same manner as I had found it.
I started the next morning, after having completed my
copying, to renew my explorations and to peruse the copy I
had made. In a week I again returned to the house where I
had been staying, when I was informed by the family that the
Obispo with his servant had returned in great trepidation and
anxiety, asking if they or any one had found a small parcel
done up, describing its outward appearance, for he had lost
it and would be ruined if it was not to be found. He had
ridden on muleback over one hundred and fifty leagues and
had searched for it in vain. On entering my apartment,
which he had also occupied, and on approaching the bed
stead and lifting the rawhide, he had discovered the lost par
it.
cel and was greatly overjoyed on again getting possession of
He rigidly questioned them concerning the extrangero
who rented the apartments, but gaining no information that
would throw any additional light on the subject, went away
satisfied with what he had recovered.
"Having when in Paris heard of such a work that had
been printed and used by Eugene Sue in his great work of
the 'Wandering Jew,' which precipitated the Revolution of
1848 and made France a republic, I sent for a copy of that
work, if it could possibly be obtained, which I was fortunate
in being able to do through an officer of the Grand Orient of
France. On comparing the two, I found that they were
identically alike, with the exception only of late additions
and emendations, which, with some other matters, were in
manuscript form as already stated. I therefora adopted the
copy sent me with the introduction by Charles Sauvestre and
11
other addenda, and at my leisure translated the whole print
ed matter into Spanish, sent the manuscript to my friends in
the city of Boston, in the United States, and had it printed
in Spanish for the benefit of my Masonic brethren in Span
ish America, but the imprint, the better to conceal the source
and protect my friends, was made to appear as having been
printed at a certain number and street in Paris. I succeeded
in getting quite a large number of copies smuggled through
the custom-house at Callao, Peru, and distributed some of
them among my Masonic brethren in that country. But,
alas! unfortunately for myself and the fraternity, the Jesuits
were to be found even among them, and, being duly warned
by true brethren, it became necessary, in order to save my
life, to flee from the country, and I made my arrangements
to leave accordingly. But being detained longer than 1 ex
pected, I had to take another route to reach another seaport
than the one originally contemplated, and in doing so had to
run the gauntlet, as it were, and was shot and stabbed in the
back, as you see by the wounds nearly healed. Fortunately
none proved to be fatal. I succeeded in reaching the sea
coast, and through kind brethren was put on board of an
English steamer bound for Panama, from whose surgeon and
officers I received every courtesy and attention, and on ar
riving at Panama, I took the Pacific Mail Company's steamer,
receiving the same tender treatment, and arrived here only a
few days ago, nearly well, and here I am just as you see me.
Through it all I have carried one copy of this work safely,
and here it is. If I could get it translated into English and
have it printed, it would be a most valuable weapon in the
hands of the Masonic fraternity."
At that time we were the Associate Editor of the Masonic
Mirror, published by A. W. Bishop & Co., afterwards Bishop
& Sherman. We offered to make the translation, and did a
small portion of it at that time and sent copies of the oath of
the San Fedistas and Colloquy to our subscribers, and we
went with him to Messrs. H. H, Bancroft & Co., Roman &
Co., and other publishers of San Francisco at that time, to
12
see if they would print the work, but all of them declined,
either out of indifference, fear or policy, and the publication
of it at that time had to be abandoned. This gentleman then
went with me to Dr. Washington Ayer, with whom the book
was left. It had been lost, and for a period of about twelvo
years could not be found, when, as good fortune would have
it, the book was again recovered in the fall of 1882, and, as
translated, it is here given to our readers. The original owner
is supposed to now be in Mexico or Central America, pursu
ing his scientific researches there. His name is withheld for
prudential reasons and for safety. He is a gentleman of high
character, and was warmly and favorably indorsed by Senor
Don Jos^ Raymundo Morales, 33'^ Active Member of the
Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Eite
of Freemasonry of Peru at the time of his visit to the Grand
Consistory of the State of California, at its organization in
San Francisco, October 12th, 1870, at which time we were
chosen as the Grand Registrar of that Grand Body.
The difficulty in adhering to the original text, being a
translation from the Spanish into English, and the Spanish
itself being a translation from the Latin and the French at
the same time, we have endeavored to give the same true to
the spirit and literally as possible; and though there are
some paragraphs and sentences somewhat awkward in ex
pression, dubious in their meaning and hard to be understood,
yet the reader will be ready, when he comes to them, to un
derstand the full force of the language of the Jesuit Talley
rand, *' that words are only intended to conceal ideas."
Asking the indulgence of our readers for the imperfections
contained in this our first edition, which when exhausted
will be supplied by another, and thanking our Masonic and
other brethren, who have encouraged us in bringing forth
this work, that we may see the devil as he is, we remain,
Fraternally yours,
EDWIN A. SHERMAN,
Translator and Compiler.
San Feanoisco, Cal., August 24, 1883.
https://dn790003.ca.archive.org/0/items/engineercorpsofhe00sher/engineercorpsofhe00sher.pdf
WKRP in Cincinnati is an American sitcom television series about the misadventures of the staff of a struggling fictional AM[1] radio station in Cincinnati, Ohio. The show was created by Hugh Wilson. It was based upon his experiences observing at Top 40 radio station WQXI in Atlanta. Many of the characters were based on people at that station.[2] Wilson once told The Cincinnati Enquirer that he selected WKRP as the call sign to stand for C-R-A-P.[3]
The ensemble cast consists of Gary Sandy (as Andy Travis), Howard Hesseman (Dr. Johnny Fever), Gordon Jump (Arthur Carlson), Loni Anderson (Jennifer Marlowe), Tim Reid (Venus Flytrap), Jan Smithers (Bailey Quarters), Richard Sanders (Les Nessman) and Frank Bonner (Herb Tarlek).[4]
The series won a Humanitas Prize[5] and received 10 Emmy Award nominations, including three for Outstanding Comedy Series. Andy Ackerman won an Emmy Award for Videotape Editing in Season 3.[6]
WKRP premiered on September 18, 1978, on the CBS television network and aired for four seasons and 90 episodes, ending on April 21, 1982. Starting in the middle of the second season, CBS repeatedly moved the show around its schedule, contributing to lower ratings and its eventual cancellation. When WKRP went into syndication, it became an unexpected success. For the next decade, it was one of the most popular sitcoms in syndication, outperforming many programs that had been more successful in prime time, including all the other MTM Enterprises sitcoms.[7]
Jump, Sanders, and Bonner reprised their roles as regular characters in a sequel series, The New WKRP in Cincinnati, which ran from 1991 to 1993 in syndication. Hesseman, Reid, and Anderson also reprised their roles as guest stars.
Premise
The station's new program director, Andy Travis, tries to turn around struggling radio station WKRP by switching its format from dated easy-listening music to rock and roll, despite the mostly incompetent efforts of the well-meaning staff: bumbling station manager Arthur Carlson, greasy sales manager Herb Tarlek and clueless news director Les Nessman. To help bolster ratings, Travis hires a new disc jockey, New Orleans native Gordon Sims (with the on-air persona of Venus Flytrap) and allows spaced-out former major-market DJ John Caravella (with the on-air persona of Dr. Johnny Fever), already doing mornings in the easy-listening format, to be himself on-air. Rounding out the cast are "bombshell" receptionist Jennifer Marlowe and junior employee Bailey Quarters. Ruthless business tycoon Lillian Carlson appears periodically as the station's owner and the mother of Arthur Carlson.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WKRP_in_Cincinnati
The Society of the Cincinnati is a fraternal, hereditary society founded in 1783 to commemorate the American Revolutionary War that saw the creation of the United States. Membership is largely restricted to descendants of military officers who served in the Continental Army.
The Society has thirteen constituent societies in the United States and one in France. It was founded to perpetuate "the remembrance of this vast event" (the achievement of American Independence), "to preserve inviolate those exalted rights and liberties of human nature," and "to render permanent the cordial affection subsisting among the officers" of the Continental Army who served in the Revolutionary War.
Now in its third century, the Society promotes public interest in the Revolution through its library and museum collections, publications, and other activities. It is the oldest patriotic, hereditary society in the United States.
History
Cincinnatus Abandons the Plow to Dictate Laws to Rome, by Juan Antonio Ribera, (Museo del Prado).
See also: List of original members of the Society of the Cincinnati
The Society is named after Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (c. 519 – c. 430 BC), who left his farm to accept a term as Roman Consul and served as Magister Populi (with temporary powers similar to that of a modern-era dictator). He assumed lawful dictatorial control of Rome to meet a war emergency. When the battle was won, he returned power to the Senate and went back to plowing his fields. The Society's motto reflects that ethic of selfless service: Omnia reliquit servare rempublicam ("He relinquished everything to save the Republic").[1] The Society has had three goals: "To preserve the rights so dearly won; to promote the continuing union of the states; and to assist members in need, their widows, and their orphans."[2]
The concept of the Society of the Cincinnati was that of Major General Henry Knox.[3] The first meeting of the Society was held in May 1783 at a dinner at the Verplanck House (present-day Mount Gulian), Fishkill, New York, before the British evacuation from New York City. The meeting was presided over by Major General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, with Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton serving as the orator.[4] The participants agreed to stay in contact with each other after the war.[5] Mount Gulian, von Steuben's headquarters, is considered the birthplace of the Society of the Cincinnati, where the Institution was formally adopted on May 13, 1783.[6][7]
Membership was generally limited to officers who had served at least three years in the Continental Army or Navy, or had served until the end of the War; it included officers of the French Army and Navy above certain ranks. Officers in the Continental Line who died during the War were also entitled to be recorded as members, and membership would devolve to their eldest male heir.[8] Members of the considerably larger fighting forces comprising the Colonial Militias and Minutemen were not entitled to join the Society. Within 12 months of the founding, a constituent Society had been organized in each of the 13 states and in France. Of about 5,500 men originally eligible for membership, 2,150 had joined within a year. King Louis XVI ordained the French Society of the Cincinnati, which was organized on July 4, 1784 (Independence Day). Up to that time, the King of France had not allowed his officers to wear any foreign decorations, but he made an exception in favor of the badge of the Cincinnati.[9]
The Verplanck House (present-day Mount Gulian), Fishkill, New York, Steuben's headquarters, where the Society was instituted May 13, 1783.
The Society's rules adopted a system of primogeniture, wherein membership was passed down to the eldest son after the death of the original member. Present-day hereditary members generally must be descended from an original member, an officer who died in service, or an officer who qualified for membership at the Society's founding but did not join. Each officer may be represented by only one descendant at any given time, following the rules of primogeniture. (The rules of eligibility and admission are controlled by each of the 14 Constituent Societies to which members are admitted. They differ slightly in each society, and some allow more than one descendant of an eligible officer.)[10] The requirement for primogeniture made the society controversial in its early years, as the new states quickly did away with laws supporting primogeniture as remnants of the English feudal system.[11]
George Washington was elected the first President General of the Society, serving from December 1783 until he died in 1799. The second President General was Alexander Hamilton, and after he died from wounds suffered in a duel in 1804, he was succeeded by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney.[12]
The society's members have included notable military and political leaders, including 23 of the 39 signers of the United States Constitution.[13]
Insignia
Insignia of the Society, c. 1783.
On June 19, 1783, the General Society of the Cincinnati adopted the bald eagle, one of America's first post-revolution symbols and an important piece of American iconography, as its insignia. (The insignia was initially called an "order" in the Society's records.) It is the second official American emblem to use the bald eagle, following the Great Seal of the United States. The insignia may have been derived from the same discourse that produced the seal.[citation needed]
The suggestion of the bald eagle as the Cincinnati insignia was made by Major Pierre L'Enfant, a French officer who joined the American Army in 1777, served in the Corps of Engineers, and became one of the first members of the Society. He observed that "[t]he Bald Eagle, which is unique to this continent, and is distinguished from those of other climates by its white head and tail, appears to me to deserve attention."[14] In 1783, L'Enfant was commissioned to travel to France to have the first eagle badges made, based on his design).
The medallions at the center of the Cincinnati Eagle depict, on the obverse, Cincinnatus receiving his sword from Roman senators and, on the reverse, Cincinnatus at his plow being crowned by the figure of Pheme (a personification of fame). The Society's light blue and white colors symbolize the fraternal bond between the United States and France. While all Cincinnati Eagles conform to this general design, no single specific design is official. Over 50 variations of the eagle have been produced over the years.
A unique diamond-encrusted "eagle", referred to as the "Diamond Eagle", was given to George Washington by Admiral Comte d'Estaing on behalf of the officers of the French Navy. Washington received it on May 11, 1784, at the meeting of the General Society in Philadelphia. Upon Washington's death in 1799, it was given by his heirs to Alexander Hamilton, who succeeded Washington as President of the Society. Upon Hamilton's death, it was given to Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who succeeded Hamilton as the Society's president. It has since served as the official insignia of the Society's president and is transferred when a new president takes office. In the late 20th century, a copy of the Diamond Eagle was made and worn by the president on occasions other than the Triennial Meeting.[15]
A specially commissioned "eagle" worn by President General George Washington was presented to Marquis de Lafayette in 1824 during his grand tour of the United States. This badge remained in possession of the Lafayette family[16] until sold at auction on December 11, 2007, for 5.3 million USD by Lafayette's great-great-granddaughter. Together with what is believed to be the original ribbon and red leather box, the badge was purchased by the Josée and René de Chambrun Foundation for display in Lafayette's bedroom at Chateau La Grange, his former home, thirty miles east of Paris; it may also be displayed at Mount Vernon, Washington's former home in Virginia.[17] This was one of three eagles known to have been owned by Washington, who most often wore the "diamond eagle", a diamond-encrusted badge given him by the French matelots (sailors). That diamond eagle continues to be passed down to each President General of the Society of the Cincinnati as part of his induction into office.
The Cincinnati Eagle is displayed in various places of public importance, including Sawyer Point in Cincinnati (named for the Society), Ohio. A popular public square was built here to house a 15' bronze statue of Cincinnatus flanked by four masts flying the American, state, city, and Society flags. The flag of the Society displays blue and white stripes and a dark blue canton (containing a circle of 14 stars around the Cincinnati Eagle, representing the fourteen subsidiary societies) in the upper corner next to the hoist. Refer to the section below for the city's historical connection to the Society.
By Federal law, Society members may wear their eagles on their American military uniforms on ceremonial occasions.[18] In practice, however, this has been rarely done since the early 20th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Cincinnati
Raymond of Burgundy (c. 1070 – 24 May 1107) was the ruler of Galicia as vassal of Alfonso VI of León and Castile, the Emperor of All Spain, from about 1090 until his death. He was the fourth son of Count William I of Burgundy and Stephanie. He married Urraca, future queen of León and heir of Alfonso VI, and was the father of the future Alfonso VII.
Background
When Raymond and his cousin, Henry of Burgundy, first arrived in Iberia is uncertain, but it probably was with the army of Duke Odo I of Burgundy in 1086. In April 1087, the army abandoned the siege of Tudela. While most of the army returned home, Odo and his retinue went west. By 21 July 1087 they were probably at Burgos, at the court of Alfonso VI, and by 5 August he was in the capital city of León. There Odo most likely arranged Raymond's marriage to Alfonso's heiress, Urraca. All surviving charters which seem to place Raymond in Spain before 1087 are either mis-dated or interpolated.[1]
By his marriage Raymond received as dowry the government of the Kingdom of Galicia (which included the County of Portugal and the County of Coimbra),[2] although shortly after, in 1095, Alfonso VI gave the County of Portugal and the County of Coimbra to Henry of Burgundy, father of the first Portuguese King Afonso Henriques of Portugal, basing it in Bracara Augusta (nowadays Braga). During his government he was titled Count, Dominus, Prince, Emperor and Consul of Galicia or of the Galicians, exercising near absolute power in his domains ("in urbe Gallecia regnante Comite Raymundus"): "serenissimus totius Gallecie comes", "totius Gallecie Senior et Dominus", "totius Gallecie Consul", "totius Gallecie Princeps", "totius Gallecie Imperator".[3]
He was father of Alfonso VII of León and Castile (1104/1105–1157), already crowned king of Galicia in 1111, while his brother later became Pope Callixtus II.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_of_Burgundy
Alan fitz Flaad (c. 1060 – after 1120) was a Breton knight, probably recruited as a mercenary by Henry I of England in his conflicts with his brothers.[1] After Henry became King of England, Alan became an assiduous courtier and obtained large estates in Norfolk, Sussex, Shropshire, and elsewhere in the Midlands, including the feudal barony and castle of Oswestry in Shropshire.[2][3][4] His duties included supervision of the Welsh border.[5] He is now noted as the progenitor of the FitzAlan family, the Earls of Arundel (1267–1580), and the House of Stuart,[6] although his family connections were long a matter of conjecture and controversy.
Career
Arrival in England
Flaad and his son Alan had come to the favourable notice of King Henry I of England who, soon after his accession, brought Flaad and Alan to England. Eyton, consistently following the theory of the Scottish origins of the Stewarts, thought this was because he was part of the entourage of the Queen, Matilda of Scotland,[7] Round pointed out that Henry had been besieged in Mont-Saint-Michel during his struggle with his brothers,[1] an event which probably occurred in 1091. He is known to have recruited Breton troops at that time and, after his surrender, left the scene via the adjoining regions of Brittany, where Dol is situated. This is a likely explanation for the Bretons in the military retinue he brought to England after the death of William Rufus.
Alan's career in England can be traced largely through his presence as a witness to charters granted by the king during his travels in the first decade or more of his reign. Some of his activities were traced by Eyton, and his researches overlap with William Farrer's calendar of Henry I travel. All of the business in which he took part was ecclesiastical, involving grants, sometimes disputed, to churches and monasteries.
Appearances at court
Alan appeared in Henry I's company at least as early as September 1101, probably at a court held in Windsor Castle,[8] when he witnessed important grants to Norwich Cathedral, confirming its foundation and various endowments.[9][10] Next, he appeared with the king at Canterbury in 1103,[11] where he witnessed the grant of a market to the nuns of Malling Abbey and land acquisitions by Rochester Cathedral, then in the process of rebuilding.[12]
Later that year,[13] or early in the next,[14] Alan was with the king in the New Forest, where the business concerned Andover Priory, a daughter house of the great Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Florent de Saumur.[15] He was probably selected deliberately for this meeting because of his family's close connections with Saumur Abbey: one of his uncles was a monk there.[16] William Rufus had decreed that all chapels in the parish of Andover church should be handed over to the monks or destroyed.[17] One problem at issue revolved around the Foxcote chapel, which was evidently being defended from destruction or annexation by Edward de Foscote, a local landowner. Another seems to have been the administration of justice in the monastic estates.[18] Wihenoc, a monk of St Florent, had initiated an action against the reeve of Andover to have these issues clarified and resolved. Alan Fitz Flaad was called upon to witness a compromise, although Foxcote was among the properties confirmed to the priory by Pope Eugenius III in 1146.[19]
In the autumn of 1105, Alan was called to York to witness confirmation of Ralph Paynel's transfer of his refounded Holy Trinity Priory in York to Marmoutier Abbey, Tours[20][21] and his many endowments of the priory itself.[22][23] At some point, he also witnessed the Roger de Nonant's gift of the church at Totnes and various tithes to the Abbey of Ss Sergius and Bacchus at Angers, a gift earmarked as being for the souls of the royal family.[24]
In May 1110, Alan was at court at Windsor again to witness the king's settlement of a property dispute between Hervey le Breton, Bishop of Ely, and Ranulph Flambard, Bishop of Durham, resolved in favour of the former.[25]
Probably only later did he appear as a witness to a royal command issued to Richard de Belmeis I, the Bishop of London and the king's viceroy in Shropshire, to see that justice was done in the case of a disputed prebend at Morville.[26][27] The collegiate church there had been dissolved and replaced with a priory attached to Shrewsbury Abbey[28] and it seems that the son of one of the prebendaries was resisting the loss of what he regarded as his patrimony. Alan is listed among a group of Shropshire magnates, including Corbets and a Peverel, meeting perhaps during Henry I's 1114 military expedition into Wales. Johnson and Cronne tentatively place the meeting at Holdgate Castle in Shropshire. Eyton dates the event earlier, around the time of a royal expedition to Shropshire in 1109.[29] Whatever the date, it shows Alan as an important member of the Shropshire landowning class.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_fitz_Flaad
Stuart's Cape Audio CD – CD, May 1, 2013
Stuart's got problems...It's raining. He's bored.And worst of all, he's new in town.So he's got a lot to worry about.But what does a kid like Stuart need in order to have an adventure? A cape, of course.
https://www.amazon.com/Stuarts-Cape-Sara-Pennypacker/dp/1470886391
Elizabeth died childless. Her successor was her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots' son James VI of Scotland. The thrones of England and Scotland were joined in a dynastic union until 1707. The seven monarchs of this period continued to use the style King/Queen of France, though their claim was merely nominal. None of them was willing to engage in military campaigns for France against the actual Kings of France Henry IV, Louis XIII and Louis XIV of France. Indeed, Charles I married a sister of Louis XIII, and his son Charles II spent much of his exile during the Interregnum in France (at which time, even if not formally abandoning his claim for its throne, he certainly did not emphasise it).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_claims_to_the_French_throne
The Capetian dynasty (/kəˈpiːʃən/ kə-PEE-shən; French: Capétiens), also known as the "House of France", is a dynasty of Frankish origin, and a branch of the Robertians and the Karlings. It is among the largest and oldest royal houses in Europe and the world, and consists of Hugh Capet, the founder of the dynasty, and his male-line descendants, who ruled in France without interruption from 987 to 1792, and again from 1814 to 1848. The senior line ruled in France as the House of Capet from the election of Hugh Capet in 987 until the death of Charles IV in 1328. That line was succeeded by cadet branches, the Houses of Valois and then Bourbon, which ruled without interruption until the French Revolution abolished the monarchy in 1792. The Bourbons were restored in 1814 in the aftermath of Napoleon's defeat, but had to vacate the throne again in 1830 in favour of the last Capetian monarch of France, Louis Philippe I, who belonged to the House of Orléans. Cadet branches of the Capetian House of Bourbon are still reigning over Spain and Luxembourg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capetian_dynasty
Rosalia Lombardo (13 December 1918 – 6 December 1920)[1] was a Palermitan child who died of pneumonia, resulting from the Spanish flu,[2] one week before her second birthday. Rosalia's father, Mario Lombardo, grieving her death, asked Alfredo Salafia, an embalmer, to preserve her remains.[3] Sometimes called "Sleeping Beauty",[4] hers was one of the last corpses to be admitted to the Capuchin catacombs of Palermo in Sicily.
Embalming
Lombardo's body in 2012.
Thanks to Salafia's embalming techniques, the body was well-preserved. X-rays of the body show that all the organs are remarkably intact.[5] Rosalia Lombardo's body is kept in a small chapel at the end of the catacomb's street and is encased in a glass covered coffin, placed on a wooden pedestal. A 2009 National Geographic photograph of Rosalia Lombardo shows the mummy is beginning to show signs of decomposition, most notably discoloration. Her body is starting to take on a yellow waxy skin texture.[6] To address these issues, the mummy was moved to a drier spot in the catacombs, and her original coffin was placed in a hermetically sealed glass enclosure with nitrogen gas to prevent decay.[7] The mummy remains one of the best preserved bodies in the catacombs.
While there are claims that Capuchin catacombs curator Dario Piombino-Mascali and his associates were the first to discover Salafia's unpublished manuscripts, Professor Umberto Di Cristina and co-author were the first to discover the unpublished manuscript in their book La Dimora delle Anime, which was published in February 2007, two years before Dario Piombino-Mascali and his colleagues published their work. An English translation by the authors of "The discovery of the Salafia handwritten manuscript and formula. Chronological and biological considerations" note 21, p. 90 from the book La Dimora delle Anime by Di Cristina et al., 2007:"Alfredo Salafia studied the process of mummification of the bodies and dedicated his life to the research of the methods to preserve the corpses by the use of pharmacological substances and chemical preparations. He wrote a treatise entitled Nuovo Metodo Speciale per la conservazione del cadavere umanointero alla stato permanentemente fresco (New Special Method for the Preservation of the Entire Human Cadaver in the State of Permanent Freshness). It consists of around 30 handwritten pages where Salafia performs a concise description of the mummification techniques from the Egyptians to the Capuchins, and provides information on the European and American studies in the first years of the twentieth century; in his treatise he describes his own (embalming) method and describes the history of the embalming procedures of some illustrious personages, (whose bodies were) well-preserved thanks to his method: among those (are), Francesco Crispi, the cardinal Michelangelo Celesia, Archbishop of Palermo, and the Senator Giacomo Armò»." The authors state that "there are no published documentary, archival or photographic sources which support the claim that Alfredo Salafia embalmed Rosalia Lombardo" [8] The embalming formula, as stated by Dario Piombino-Mascali et. al, is described as "one part glycerin, one part formalin saturated with zinc sulfate and zinc chloride, and one part of an alcohol solution saturated with salicylic acid", and was entered into the body through a single-point injection, most likely into the femoral artery via a gravity injector.[1][9] Rossella Lorenzi of Discovery News reported that the formalin was used to kill bacteria, the glycerin used to prevent desiccation, and the salicylic acid used to eliminate any fungi within the flesh, with the purpose of the zinc salts being petrifaction.[9]
The mummy has achieved further notoriety for a phenomenon in which her eyes appear to open and close several times a day, revealing her intact blue irises.[10] In response to speculation about her moving eyelids, Piombino-Mascali stated that "It's an optical illusion produced by the light that filters through the side windows, which during the day is subject to change ... [her eyes] are not completely closed, and indeed they have never been".[11]
In 2021, a German heavy metal band Under The Night Sky released an EP called Rosalia (1918-1920).[12][13][14]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalia_Lombardo
The Lombards (/ˈlɒmbərdz, -bɑːrdz, ˈlʌm-/)[1] or Longobards (Latin: Longobardi) were a Germanic people[2] who conquered most of the Italian Peninsula between 568 and 774.
The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the History of the Lombards (written between 787 and 796) that the Lombards descended from a small tribe called the Winnili,[3] who dwelt in northern Germany[4] before migrating to seek new lands. Earlier Roman-era historians wrote of the Lombards in the first century AD as being one of the Suebian peoples, also from what is now northern Germany, near the Elbe river. They migrated south, and by the end of the fifth century, the Lombards had moved into the area roughly coinciding with modern Austria and Slovakia north of the Danube. Here they subdued the Heruls and later fought frequent wars with the Gepids. The Lombard king Audoin defeated the Gepid leader Thurisind in 551 or 552, and Audoin's successor Alboin eventually destroyed the Gepids in 567. The Lombards also settled in Pannonia (modern-day Hungary). Near Szólád, archaeologists have unearthed burial sites of Lombard men and women buried together as families, unusual among Germanic peoples at the time. Contemporary traces have also been discovered of Mediterranean Greeks and a possible migrant from France.
Following Alboin's victory over the Gepids, he led his people into northeastern Italy, which had become severely depopulated and devastated after the long Gothic War (535–554) between the Byzantine Empire and the Ostrogothic Kingdom. The Lombards were joined by numerous Saxons, Heruls, Gepids, Bulgars, Thuringians and Ostrogoths, and their invasion of Italy was almost unopposed. By late 569, they had conquered all of northern Italy and the principal cities north of the Po River except Pavia, which fell in 572. At the same time, they occupied areas in central and southern Italy. They established a Lombard Kingdom in north and central Italy, which reached its zenith under the eighth-century ruler Liutprand. In 774, the kingdom was conquered by the Frankish king Charlemagne and integrated into the Frankish Empire. However, Lombard nobles continued to rule southern parts of the Italian peninsula well into the eleventh century, when they were conquered by the Normans and added to the County of Sicily. In this period, the southern part of Italy still under Lombard domination was known to the Norse as Langbarðaland ('land of the Lombards'), as inscribed in the Norse runestones.[5] Their legacy is also apparent in the name of the region of Lombardy in northern Italy.
Name
According to their traditions, the Lombards initially called themselves the Winnili. After a reported major victory against the Vandals in the first century, they changed their name to Lombards.[6] The name Winnili is generally translated as 'the wolves', related to the Proto-Germanic root *wulfaz 'wolf'.[7] The name Lombard was reportedly derived from the distinctively long beards of the Lombards.[8] It is probably a compound of the Proto-Germanic elements *langaz (long) and *bardaz (beard).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombards
Sir Isaac Newton :: Chapter 6. Of the ten Kingdoms represented by the ten horns of the fourth Beast.
Part I. Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel.
Chap. 6.
Of the ten Kingdoms represented by the ten horns of the fourth Beast.
Now by the wars above described the Western Empire of the Romans, about the time that Rome was besieged and taken by the Goths, became broken into the following ten kingdoms.
1. The kingdom of the Vandals and Alans in Spain and Africa.
2. The kingdom of the Suevians in Spain.
3. The kingdom of the Visigoths.
4. The kingdom of the Alans in Gallia.
5. The kingdom of the Burgundians.
6. The kingdom of the Franks.
7. The kingdom of the Britains.
8. The kingdom of the Hunns.
9. The kingdom of the Lombards.
10. The kingdom of Ravenna.
Seven of these kingdoms are thus mentioned by Sigonius. Honorio regnante, in Pannoniam Hunni, in Hispaniam Vandali, Alani, Suevi & Gothi, in Galliam Alani Burgundiones & Gothi, certis sedibus permissis, accepti. Add the Franks, Britains, and Lombards, and you have the ten: for these arose about the same time with the seven. But let us view them severally.
https://www.blueletterbible.org/.../prophecies/daniel06.cfm
All historians acknowledge the ascendancy of the popes began in 308 A.D., when King Clovis of the Salian or Merovingian Franks (later France), won the decisive battle in the Catholic and Arian religious war, thereby settling the dispute in favor of the Catholics. But the popes' temporal reign officially began in the year 538 A.D. when Roman Emperor Justinian subdued the last of the three kingdoms, or "horns," that opposed the rise of the Papacy."
-page 137
Chapter 19 "Exposed (Again): 1260 Years of World Domination
Codeword Barbelon book 2
by P.D. Stuart
https://www.facebook.com/billy.dunn.50767/posts/pfbid035xnEp3Ly2wiUwdPzYuyuedPDSdcSEVe8gzHxCZfovqX8epcgRL4v7RbqwVsjavD3l
Louis de Bourbon (1438 – 30 August 1482 in Liège) was Prince-Bishop of Liège from 1456 until his death.
Family
He was the son of Charles I, Duke of Bourbon, and Agnes of Burgundy.[1] His own sister Isabella was the second wife of Charles the Bold.
He was brought up and educated by his uncle Philip, Duke of Burgundy, who let him study for ten years at the University of Leuven.[2]
It has been said that Louis married, in secret in 1464, Catherine, daughter of Arnold, Duke of Gelderland; these claims date only from the seventeenth century and are now believed to be false.
Louis' three children (all likely to have been born from a mistress) were:
Pierre de Bourbon, bâtard de Liège (1464–1529)[3]
Louis de Bourbon, bâtard de Liège (1465–1500)
Jacques de Bourbon, bâtard de Liège (1466–1537)
Louis' eldest son, Pierre, founded the Bourbon-Busset family.
Conflict over the bishopric
In 1456, Louis was given, through the efforts of Philip, Duke of Burgundy, the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, by influencing Pope Callixtus III and removing the 69-year-old John of Heinsberg.[4] Given the strategic position of Liège almost enclosed by Burgundian possessions, Louis was a poor choice because his behavior quickly led to troubles, permitting French meddling.[a]
The citizens rejected the new bishop and the Burgundian influence, which led to the Liège Wars. Louis was exiled to Maastricht.[6] Marc de Bade was put in place by the Liégeois, who fought under Raes van Heers, restored the bishop, but Liège lost its sovereignty. Another revolt in 1467 was crushed at the Battle of Brustem.
In the summer of 1468, Louis was back in his prince-bishopric, after a papal legate had intervened, but was captured at Tongeren by a raiding party from Liège, at that time again asserting independence of Charles the Bold of Burgundy.[7] An unlikely alliance of Charles with Louis XI, who in 1465 had helped the Liégeois against the bishop, saw Bishop Louis released. Liège was taken,[8] and sacked on 30 October 1468.[9] In gratitude Louis gave Charles the Horn of St Hubert, now in the Wallace Collection[10]
Later life
Louis sold Condé and Leuze to Marie de Montmorency.
In 1477, Charles the Bold was killed, and his daughter and heiress Mary of Burgundy was forced to sign the Peace of Saint-Jacques, consolidating the bishop's position but returning sovereignty to Liège. He was at this time amongst the advisers of Mary who wanted her to marry the future Charles VIII of France, then Dauphin of France.[11]
Louis ruled until 30 August 1482, when he was assassinated by William de la Marck, an adventurer who from 1478 had been operating against the territory from the Castle of Logne.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_de_Bourbon,_Bishop_of_Li%C3%A8ge
The Carolingian dynasty (/ˌkærəˈlɪndʒiən/ KARR-ə-LIN-jee-ən;[1] known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charles Martel and his grandson Charlemagne, descendants of the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD.[2] The dynasty consolidated its power in the 8th century, eventually making the offices of mayor of the palace and dux et princeps Francorum hereditary, and becoming the de facto rulers of the Franks as the real powers behind the Merovingian throne. In 751 the Merovingian dynasty which had ruled the Franks was overthrown with the consent of the Papacy and the aristocracy, and Pepin the Short, son of Martel, was crowned King of the Franks. The Carolingian dynasty reached its peak in 800 with the crowning of Charlemagne as the first Emperor of the Romans in the West in over three centuries. Nearly every monarch of France from Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious until the penultimate monarch of France Louis Philippe have been his descendants, Charlemagne's death in 814 began an extended period of fragmentation of the Carolingian Empire and decline that would eventually lead to the evolution of the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire.
Name
The Carolingian dynasty takes its name from Carolus, the Latinised name of multiple Frankish kings including Charlemagne and Charles Martel.[3] Incidentally, the US states of North and South Carolina are also based on the name Charles, having been named after King Charles II of England. The name originates from a common Germanic word, rendered in Old High German as Karl or Kerl,[4] meaning 'man', 'husband', or 'freeman'.[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_dynasty
Pope Alexander VI[Note 2] (born Rodrigo de Borja[Note 3]; 1 January 1431 – 18 August 1503) (epithet: Valentinus ("The Valencian")[6] was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 11 August 1492 until his death in 1503. Born into the prominent Borgia family in Xàtiva in the Kingdom of Valencia under the Crown of Aragon (now Spain), Rodrigo studied law at the University of Bologna. He was ordained deacon and made a cardinal in 1456 after the election of his uncle as Pope Callixtus III, and a year later he became vice-chancellor of the Catholic Church. He proceeded to serve in the Curia under the next four popes, acquiring significant influence and wealth in the process. In 1492, Rodrigo was elected pope, taking the name Alexander VI.
Alexander's papal bulls of 1493 confirmed or reconfirmed the rights of the Spanish crown in the New World following the finds of Christopher Columbus in 1492. During the second Italian war, Alexander VI supported his son Cesare Borgia as a condottiero for the French king. The scope of his foreign policy was to gain the most advantageous terms for his family.[7][8]
Alexander is one of the most controversial of the Renaissance popes, partly because he acknowledged fathering several children by his mistresses. As a result, his Italianized Valencian surname, Borgia, became a byword for libertinism and nepotism, which are traditionally considered as characterizing his pontificate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Alexander_VI
Francis Borgia SJ (Valencian: Francesc de Borja; Spanish: Francisco de Borja; 28 October 1510 – 30 September 1572) was a Spanish Jesuit priest. The great-grandson of both Pope Alexander VI and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, he was Duke of Gandía and a grandee of Spain. After the death of his wife, Borgia renounced his titles and became a priest in the Society of Jesus, later serving as its third superior general. He was canonized on 20 June 1670 by Pope Clement X.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Borgia
Borja (Borgia)
Spanish: habitational name from a place in Zaragoza province named from Arabic burj ‘tower’. See also Borgia .
https://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=borja
One World Trade Center, also known as One WTC and erroneously as the Freedom Tower,[note 1] is the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, One World Trade Center is the tallest building in the United States, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, and the seventh-tallest in the world. The supertall structure has the same name as the North Tower of the original World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The new skyscraper stands on the northwest corner of the 16-acre (6.5 ha) World Trade Center site, on the site of the original 6 World Trade Center. It is bounded by West Street to the west, Vesey Street to the north, Fulton Street to the south, and Washington Street to the east.
The construction of below-ground utility relocations, footings, and foundations for the new building began on April 27, 2006. One World Trade Center became the tallest structure in New York City on April 30, 2012, when it surpassed the height of the Empire State Building. The tower's steel structure was topped out on August 30, 2012. On May 10, 2013, the final component of the skyscraper's spire was installed, making the building, including its spire, reach a total height of 1,776 feet (541 m). Its height in feet is a deliberate reference to the year when the United States Declaration of Independence was signed. The building opened on November 3, 2014;[12] the One World Observatory opened on May 29, 2015.[13]
On March 26, 2009, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) confirmed that the building would be officially known by its legal name of "One World Trade Center", rather than its colloquial name of "Freedom Tower".[15][16][17] The building has 94 stories, with the top floor numbered 104.
The new World Trade Center complex will eventually include five high-rise office buildings built along Greenwich Street, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, located just south of One World Trade Center where the original Twin Towers stood, and the World Trade Center Transportation Hub to its east. The construction of the new building is part of an effort to memorialize and rebuild following the destruction of the original World Trade Center complex.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_World_Trade_CenteR
Pope John XXIII's coat of arms.
Of gules, a silver sash, a silver tower mazonada and clarified with sable especially, accompanied chiefly by two fleurs-de-lis of the same, a silver chief with a winged leopard lion, holding a gospel with the front right leg open with the text "PAX TIBI MARCE EVANGELISTA MEUS", all in gold and saber letters.
https://br.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restr:C_o_a_John_XXIII.svg
Pope John XXIII (Latin: Ioannes XXIII; Italian: Giovanni XXIII [dʒoˈvanni ventitreˈɛːzimo]; born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, Italian: [ˈandʒelo dʒuˈzɛppe roŋˈkalli];[a] 25 November 1881 – 3 June 1963) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 28 October 1958 until his death in June 1963.
Roncalli was among 13 children born to Marianna Mazzola and Giovanni Battista Roncalli in a family of sharecroppers who lived in Sotto il Monte, a village in the province of Bergamo, Lombardy.[8] He was ordained to the priesthood on 10 August 1904 and served in a number of posts, as nuncio in France and a delegate to Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. In a consistory on 12 January 1953 Pope Pius XII made Roncalli a cardinal as the Cardinal-priest of Santa Prisca in addition to naming him as the Patriarch of Venice. Roncalli was unexpectedly elected pope on 28 October 1958 at age 76 after Pope Pius XII's death. Pope John XXIII surprised those who expected him to be a caretaker pope by calling the historic Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the first session opening on 11 October 1962, which is now his feast.
John XXIII made many passionate speeches during his pontificate. His views on equality were summed up in his statement, "We were all made in God's image, and thus, we are all Godly alike."[9][10] He made a major impact on the Catholic Church, opening it up to dramatic unexpected changes promulgated at the Second Vatican Council and by his own dealings with other churches and nations. In Italian politics, he prohibited bishops from interfering with local elections, and he helped the Christian Democracy party to cooperate with the Italian Socialist Party. In international affairs, his Ostpolitik engaged in dialogue with the communist countries of Eastern Europe. He especially reached out to the Eastern Orthodox churches.
His overall goal was to modernize the Church by emphasizing its pastoral role, and its necessary involvement with affairs of state. He dropped the traditional rule of 70 cardinals, increasing the size to 85. He used the opportunity to name the first cardinals from Africa, Japan, and the Philippines. He promoted ecumenical movements in cooperation with other Christian faiths. In doctrinal matters, he was a traditionalist, but he ended the practice of automatically formulating social and political policies on the basis of old theological propositions.[11]
He did not live to see the Second Vatican Council to completion. In September 1962, he was diagnosed with stomach cancer and died eight months later on June 3, 1963. His cause for canonization was opened on 18 November 1965 by his successor, Pope Paul VI, who declared him a Servant of God. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2000. On 5 July 2013, Pope Francis – bypassing the traditionally required second miracle – declared John XXIII a saint, based on his virtuous, model lifestyle, and because of the good which had come from his opening of the Second Vatican Council. He was canonized alongside Pope John Paul II himself on 27 April 2014.[12][13] John XXIII today is affectionately known as "the Good Pope" (Italian: il papa buono).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_XXIII
Facade of St. Peter's
On February 10, 1608 the first stone was laid and on July 21, 1612 most of the work was completed. It took another two years for the ornamentattion.
The inscription (1m high) states: "Paul V Borghese, Roman, Pontiff, in the year 1612, the seventh of his pontificate, [erected] in honour of the Prince of Apostles".
From the central balcony, called the Loggia of the Blessings, the new pope is announced with "Habemus Papum", and gives the Urbi et Orbi blessing. The relief under the balcony, by Buonvicino, represents Christ giving the keys to St. Peter.
https://www.stpetersbasilica.info/Exterior/Facade/Facade.htm
Pope Paul V (Latin: Paulus V; Italian: Paolo V) (17 September 1550 – 28 January 1621), born Camillo Borghese, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 16 May 1605 to his death, in January 1621. In 1611, he honored Galileo Galilei as a member of the papal Accademia dei Lincei and supported his discoveries.[2] In 1616, Pope Paul V instructed Cardinal Robert Bellarmine to inform Galileo that the Copernican theory could not be taught as fact, but Bellarmine's certificate allowed Galileo to continue his studies in search for evidence and use the geocentric model as a theoretical device. That same year Paul V assured Galileo that he was safe from persecution so long as he, the Pope, should live. Bellarmine's certificate was used by Galileo for his defense at the trial of 1633.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Paul_V
Borghese
Recorded in many forms including Bourges, Bourgaize, Bourgeois, (France), Burgess, Burges and Burgis (England and Scotland), Borghese, Borgesio and Burgisi (Italy), and others, this interesting surname is of pre 8th century Old French origins. It derives from the word "burgeis", meaning inhabitant and FREEMAN of a fortified town, one which could apply municipal rates, taxes, and duties. A burgeis generally had tenure of land or buildings from a landlord by "burgage", which involved the payment of a fixed money rent. In Scotland, the position of burgess required not only the making of payments, but to be availble to take part in guarding the town. The surname is one of the earliest recorded anywhere in the world. These recordings are from England because this country was the first to adopt both hereditary surnames and to make the necessary registers in which to record them. France was several centuries later, and Italy, not until the 19th century in most areas. Early recordings showing the influence of the Norman-French in England after the Invasion of 1066 include: Ralph le Burgeis, in the Pipe Rolls of the county of Sussex in 1195, and Philip Bourges in the cartulary of Oseney Abbey, Oxford in 1197. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Geoffrey Burgeis, which was dated 1115, in the "Winton Rolls" of Hampshire. This was during the reign of King Henry 1st, known as "The Lion of Justice", 1100 - 1135. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. Over the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop", often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.
https://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Borghese
Petite bourgeoisie (French pronunciation: [pətit(ə) buʁʒwazi], literally 'small bourgeoisie'; also anglicised as petty bourgeoisie) is a term that refers to a social class composed of small business owners, shopkeepers, small-scale merchants, semi-autonomous peasants, and artisans. They are named as such because their politico-economic ideological stance in times of stability is reflective of the proper haute bourgeoisie (high bourgeoisie or upper class). In ordinary times, the petite bourgeoisie seek to identify themselves with the haute bourgeoisie, whose bourgeois morality, conduct and lifestyle they aspire and strive to imitate.[1]
The term, which goes as far back as the Revolutionary period in France, if not earlier, is politico-economic and addresses historical materialism. It originally denoted a sub-stratum of the middle classes in the 18th and early-19th centuries of western Europe. In the mid-19th century, the German economist Karl Marx and other Marxist theorists used the term petite bourgeoisie to academically identify the socio-economic stratum of the bourgeoisie that consists of small shopkeepers and self-employed artisans.[2][3][4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petite_bourgeoisie
FREEMASON
Encyclopedia Masonica
One who has been initiated into the mysteries of the Fraternity of Freemasonry. Freemasons are so called to distinguish them from the Operative or Stone-Masons, who constituted an inferior class of workmen, and out of whom they sprang (see Stonemasons and Traveling Freemasons). The meaning of the epithet free, as applied to Mason, is given under the word Free. In the old lectures of the eighteenth century a Freemason was described as being "a freeman, born of a freewoman, brother to a king, fellow to a prince, or companion to a beggar, if a Mason," and by this was meant to indicate the universality of the Brotherhood.
The word Freemason was until recently divided into two words, sometimes with and sometimes without a hyphen; and we find in all the old books and manuscripts Free Mason or Free-Mason. But this usage has generally been abandoned by writers, and Freemason is usually spelled as one word. The old Constitutions constantly used the word Mason. E et the word was employed at a very early period in the parish registers of England, and by some writers. Thus, in the register of the parish of Astbury we find these items:
1685. Smallwood, Jos., fils Jos. Henshaw, Freemason bapt 3 die Nov. 1697. Jos. fil Jos. Henshaw, Freemason, buried 7 April.
But the most singular passage is one found in Cawdray's Treasurie of Similies, published in 1609, and which he copied from Bishop Coverdale's translation of Werdmuller's A Spiritual and most Precious Perle, which was published in 1550. It is as follows:
As the freemason heweth-the hard stones . . . even so God the Heavenly Free-Mason buildeth a Christian church.
But, in fact, the word was used at a much earlier period, and occurs, Steinbrenner says in his Origin and Early History of Masonry (page 110), for the first time in a statute passed in 1350, in the twenty-fifth year of Edward I, where the wages of a Master Freemason are fixed at 4 pence, and of other Masons at 3 pence. The original French text of the statute is "Mestre de franche-peer." "Here," says Steinbrenner, "the word Freemason evidently signifies a free-stone mason?one who works in free-stone, the French franche-peer, meaning franche-pierre, as distinguished from the rough masons who merely built walls of rough, unhown stone." This latter sort of workmen was that class called by the Scotch Masons cowans whom the Freemasons were forbidden to work with, whence we get the modern use of that word.
Ten years after, in 1360, we have a statute of Edward III, in which it is ordained that "every Mason shall finish his work, be it of free-stone or of rough-stone," where the French text of the statute is file franche-pere ou de grosse-pere." Thus it seems evident that the word free-mason was originally used in contradistinction to rough-rruson. The old Constituitions sometimes call these latter masons rough layers.
https://www.universalfreemasonry.org/en/encyclopedia/freemason
Valley of Traverse City
ANCIENT ACCEPTED SCOTTISH RITE
The History and Legend of Scottish Rite Origins
The Story Unfolds…
Like much of early Masonic history, the origins of the Scottish Rite are uncertain. This is primarily due to the lack of historic documentation prior to the early 1700’s and not to any great veiled mystery. The few records kept were subject to loss, fire, weather and aging. So we can at best only speculate on many of our origins by looking at the few documents, historical references and legends that remain.
What We Know
In 1754, near Paris, Chevalier de Bonneville established the Chapter of Clermont. The Chapter resided in the College of Jesuits of Clermont, hence the name. It is said to have been created to honor the Duc de Clermont, then Grand Master of the English Grand Lodge of France.
The Chapter of Clermont was a “Chapter of the Advanced Degrees” and initially entailed six degrees and was later extended to 25 known degrees. The six initial degrees were 1˚, 2˚ and 3˚ St John’s Masonry, 4˚ Knight of the Eagle, 5˚ Illustrious Knight or Templar, 6˚ Sublime Illustrious Knight.
Interestingly enough historically, prior to the time of the Rite’s creation, James II had been in residence at Clermont in exile from Britain from 1688 to his death in 1701. As noted by German Masonic historian, Lenning… “whilst in exile, James II residing at the Jesuit College of Clermont in France, allowed his closest associates to fabricate certain degrees in order to extend their political views.” Lenning believed this to have been an attempt on the part of James and his associates to regain control of the British throne for the House of Stuart. If Lenning is right, this places the origins of the “Rite of Perfection” in the hands of James II and the Jacobite (Stuart) Freemasons who at the time were in exile from Great Britain throughout France and Italy. Lenning also contends that these degrees were introduced into French Freemasonry under the name of the Clermont System.
James II died in exile in 1701. His son James III is said to have continued his father’s Masonic legacy and later created further higher degrees.
Perhaps James II saw in the Jesuit morality plays of the College of Clermont a vessel for passing on a set of moral lessons. Some of the world’s greatest playwrights had emerged from Clermont. Jesuit tutelage had previously produced great writers such as Lope de Vega, Moliere, Racine, and the Corneille brothers. Ensconced in exile, I believe James II did find the inspiration and the training to help produce what would later become the first six degrees. From out of the darkness… comes light.
To be continued… (Author’s note… An in depth look at the Templar influence in Scottish Rite masonry’s origins can be found by visiting the Rosslyn Templars’ website.)"
https://web.archive.org/web/20190615041607/http://www.traversecityscottishrite.com/scottish-rite-history.html
PART VI 1THE PERSONAL LIFE OF THOSE ALREADY ADMITTED AND INCORPORATED INTO THE BODY OF THE SOCIETY
SECTION 1: THE APOSTOLIC CHARACTER OF OUR VOWS IN GENERAL
143 §1. Our consecration by profession of the evangelical counsels, by which we respond to a divine vocation, is at one and the same time the following of Christ poor, virginal, and obedient and a rejection of those idols that the world is always prepared to adore, especially wealth, pleasure, prestige, and power. Hence, our poverty, chastity, and obedience ought visibly and efficaciously to bear witness to this attitude, whereby we proclaim the evangelical possibility of a certain communion among men and women that is a foretaste of the future kingdom of God.[1]
§2. Our religious vows, while binding us, also set us FREE:
FREE, by our vow of poverty, to share the life of the poor and to use whatever resources we may have, not for our own security and comfort, but for service;
FREE, by our vow of chastity, to be men for others, in friendship and communion with all, but especially with those who share our mission of service;
FREE, by our vow of obedience, to respond to the call of Christ as made known to us by him whom the Spirit has placed over the Church, and to follow the lead of all our superiors.[2] [1] See GC 32, d. 4, no. 16; see GC 31, d. 16, no. 4; d. 17, no. 2; d. 18, no. 3. [2] GC 32, d. 2, no. 20. 215
The Constitutions of The Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms
https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions
The Crowns of America
So often one hears politicians quoting the British Constitution as if it actually exists by way of adocumentary privilege — but it does not. It is simply an accumulation of old customs and precedents concerning parliamentary sanctions, together with a number of specific laws defining certain aspects. Since Scotland's 1320 Declaration of Arbroath was nullified by England's Treaty of Union in 1707, the oldest Written Constitution now in force is that of the United States of America. It was adopted in 1787, ratified in 1788, and effected in 1789. In that same year began the French Revolution, which abolished feudalism and ‘absolute’ monarchy in France, thereby influencing politics in much of Europe. In close to 200 years since the Revolution, France and other European States (with Britain as a noticeable exception) have adopted Written Constitutions to protect the rights and liberties of individuals — but who champions these Constitutions on behalf of the people? A popular alternative to absolute monarchy or dictatorship has been found in Republicanism. The Republic of the United States was created primarily to free the emergent nation from the despotism of Britain’s House of Hanover. Yet its citizens tend still to be fascinated by the concept of monarchy. No matter how Republican the spirit, the need for a central symbol remains. Neither a flag nor a president can fulfil this unifying role, for by virtue of the ‘party system’ presidents are always politically motivated. Republicanism was devised on the principle of fraternal status, yet an ideally classless society can never exist in an environment that promotes displays of eminence and superiority by degrees of wealth and possession. For the most part, those responsible for the United States’ morally inspired Constitution were Rosicrucians and Freemasons, notable characters such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Charles Thompson. The last, who designed the Great Seal of the United States of America, was a member of Franklin’s American Philosophical Society — a counterpart of Britain’s Invisible College. The imagery of the Seal is directly related to alchemical tradition, inherited from the allegory of the ancient Egyptian Therapeutate. The eagle, the olive branch, the arrows, and the pentagrams are all occult symbols of opposites: good and evil, male and female, war and peace, darkness and light. On the reverse (as repeated on the dollar bill) is the truncated pyramid, indicating the loss of the Old Wisdom, severed and forced underground by the Church establishment. But above this are the rays of ever-hopeful light, incorporating the ‘all-seeing eye’, used as a symbol during the French Revolution.
In establishing their Republic, the Americans could still not escape the ideal of a parallel monarchy — a central focus of non-political, patriotic attachment. George Washington was actually offered kingship, but declined because he had no immediately qualifying heritage. Instead he turned to the Royal House of Stuart. In November 1782 four Americans arrived at the San Clemente Palazzo in Florence, the residence of Charles III Stuart in exile. They were Mr Galloway of Maryland, two brothers named Sylvester from Pennsylvania, and Mr Fish, a lawyer from New York. They were taken to Charles Edward by his secretary, John Stewart. Also present was the Hon Charles Hervey-Townshend (later Britain’s ambassador to The Hague) and the Prince's future wife, Marguerite, Comtesse de Massillan. The interview — which revolved around the contemporary transatlantic dilemma — is doctimented in the US Senate archives and in the Manorwater Papers. Writers such as Sir Compton Mackenzie and Sir Charles Petrie have also described the occasion when Charles Edward Stuart was invited to become ‘King of the Americans’. Some years earlier, Charles had been similarly approached by the men of Boston, but once the War of Independence was over George Washington sent his own envoys. It would have been a great irony for the House of Hanover to lose the North American colonies to the Stuarts. But Charles declined the offer for a number of reasons, not the least of which was his lack of a legitimate male heir at the time. He knew that without a due successor the United States could easily fall to Hanover again at his death, thereby defeating the whole Independence effort. Since those days, many other radical events have taken place: the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, two major World Wars, and a host of changes as countries have swapped one style of government for another. Meanwhile, civil and international disputes continue just as they did in the Middle Ages. They are motivated by trade, politics, religion, and whatever other banners are flown to justify the constant struggle for territorial and economic control. The Holy Roman Empire has disappeared, the German Reichs have failed, and the British Empire has collapsed. The Russian Empire fell to Communism, which has itself been disgraced and crumbled to ruin, while Capitalism teeters on the very brink of acceptability. With the Cold War now ended, America faces a new threat to her superpower status from the Pacific countries. In the meantime, the nations of Europe band together in what was once a seemingly well conceived economic community, but which is already suffering from the same pressures of individual custom and national sovereignty that beset the Holy Roman Empire. Whether nations are governed by military-style regimes or elected parliaments, by autocrats or democrats, and whether formally described as monarchist, socialist or republican, the net product is always the same: the few control the fate of the many. In situations of dictatorship this is a natural experience — but it should not be the case in a democratic institution based on the principle of majority vote. True democracy is government by the people for the people, in either direct or representative form, ignoring class distinctions and tolerating minority views. The American Constitution sets out an ideal for this form of democracy ... but, in line with other nations, there is always a large sector of the community that is not represented by the party in power. Because presidents and prime ministers are politically tied, and because political parties take their respective turns at individual helms, the inevitable result is a lack of continuity for the nations concerned. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but there is no reliable ongoing institution to champion the civil rights and liberties of people in such conditions of ever-changing leadership. Britain does, at least, retain a monarchy, but it is a politically constrained monarchy, and as such is ineffectual in performing its role as guardian of the nation. The United States, unlike Britain, has a Written Constitution — but has no one with the power to uphold its principles against successive governments who determinedly pursue their own politically vested interests. Is there an answer to the anomaly — an answer that could bring not just a ray of hope but a shining light for the future? There certainly is, but its energy relies on those in governmental service appreciating their roles as ‘representatives’ of society rather than presuming to stand at the head of society. Alongside the political administration, an appointed Constitutional champion would be empowered to keep check on any potential disparities and infringements of the Constitution that might occur. This can be achieved in the manner first envisaged by George Washington and the American Fathers. Their original plan was for a democratic Parliament combined with a working Constitutional Monarchy bound not to Parliament or the Church but to the people and their Written Constitution. In such an environment, sovereignty would ultimately rest with the people, while the monarch (as an operative Guardian of the Realm) would pledge an ‘Oath of Fealty to the Nation’ — not the reverse, as in Britain’s case, whereby the nation pays homage to the sovereignty of Parliament and the monarchy. The unfulfilled ambition of the American Fathers was that government ministers should be elected by the majority vote of the people, but that their actions be directed within the boundaries of the Constitution. Because that Constitution belongs to the people, its champion — as George Washington perceived — should be a monarch whose obligation is not to politics or religion but to the sovereign nation. Through the natural system of heredity (being born and bred to the task), such a Constitutional guardian would provide an ‘ongoing continuity’ of public representation through successive governments. In this regard both monarchs and ministers would be servants of the Constitution on behalf of the Community of the Realm. Such a concept of moral government lies at the very heart of the Grail Code, and it remains within the bounds of possibility for every civilized Nation State. A leading British politician recently claimed that it was not his job to be popular! Not so—a popular minister is a trusted minister, and holding a deserved electoral trust facilitates the democratic process. No minister can honestly expound an ideal of equality in society when that minister is deemed to possess some form of prior lordship over society. Class structure is always decided from above, never from below. It is therefore for those on self-made pedestals to be seen to kick them aside in the interests of harmony and unity. Jesus was not in the least humbled when he washed his Apostles’ feet; he was raised to the realm of a true Grail King — the realm of equality and princely service. This is the eternal ‘Precept of the Sangréal’, and it is expressed in Grail lore with the utmost clarity: only by asking ‘Whom does the Grail serve?’ will the wound of the Fisher King be healed, and the Wasteland returned to fertility.
pages 438-443 "The Sangreal Today"
Bloodline of the Holy Grail
by Laurence Gardner
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zsH4O_ls0IgWEYXLXWCo7I3IUi32FJhq/view?usp=sharing
George Clinton (July 26, 1739 – April 20, 1812)[a] was an American soldier, statesman, and a prominent Democratic-Republican in the formative years of the United States. Clinton served as the fourth vice president in the second term of the Jefferson administration and the first term of the Madison administration from 1805 until his death in 1812. He also served as the first governor of New York from 1777 to 1795 and again from 1801 to 1804; his tenure makes him the second-longest-serving governor in U.S. history. Clinton was the first vice-president to die in office, and the first of two to hold office under two consecutive presidents.[b]
Born in the Province of New York, Clinton served in the French and Indian War, rising to the rank of lieutenant in the colonial militia. He began a legal practice after the war and served as a district attorney for New York City. He became Governor of New York in 1777 and remained in that office until 1795. Clinton supported the cause of independence during the American Revolutionary War and served in the Continental Army despite his gubernatorial position. During and after the war, Clinton was an opponent of Vermont's entrance into the Union on account of disputes over land claims.
Clinton became the longest continuously-serving governor in US history, with a tenure of 17 years, 11 months, and two days from 1775 to 1795. He opposed the ratification of the United States Constitution, became a prominent Anti-Federalist, and advocated for the addition of the United States Bill of Rights. In the early 1790s, he emerged as a leader of the incipient Democratic-Republican Party, serving as the party's vice presidential candidate in the 1792 presidential election. Clinton received the third most electoral votes in the election, as President George Washington and Vice President John Adams both won re-election. Clinton did not seek re-election in 1795, but returned the governorship from 1801 to 1804. With a total tenure of 20 years, 11 months, and two days, Clinton was the longest-serving governor in U.S. history until 2015.[c]
Clinton was picked again as the Democratic-Republican vice presidential nominee in the 1804 election, as President Thomas Jefferson dumped Aaron Burr from the ticket. Clinton sought his party's presidential nomination in the 1808 election, but the party's congressional nominating caucus instead nominated James Madison. Despite his opposition to Madison, Clinton was re-elected as vice president. Clinton died in 1812, leaving the office of vice president vacant for the first time in U.S. history. Clinton's nephew, DeWitt Clinton, continued the Clinton New York political dynasty after his uncle's death.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Clinton_(vice_president)
George Edward Clinton[6] (born July 22, 1941[7]) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer and bandleader.[8] His Parliament-Funkadelic collective (which primarily recorded under the distinct band names Parliament and Funkadelic) developed an influential and eclectic form of funk music during the 1970s that drew on Afrofuturism, outlandish fashion, psychedelia, and surreal humor.[9] He launched his solo career with the 1982 album Computer Games and would go on to influence 1990s hip-hop and G-funk.[2]
Clinton is regarded, along with James Brown and Sly Stone, as one of the foremost innovators of funk music. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, alongside 15 other members of Parliament-Funkadelic. In 2019, he and Parliament-Funkadelic were given Grammy Lifetime Achievement Awards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Clinton_(funk_musician)
Pope Francis (Latin: Franciscus; Italian: Francesco; Spanish: Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio;[b] 17 December 1936) is head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State. He is the first pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuit Order), the first from the Americas and the Southern Hemisphere, and the first born or raised outside Europe since the 8th-century papacy of the Syrian pope Gregory III.
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Bergoglio worked for a time as a bouncer and a janitor as a young man before training to be a chemist and working as a technician in a food science laboratory. After recovering from a severe illness of pneumonia and cysts, he was inspired to join the Jesuits in 1958. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1969, and from 1973 to 1979 was the Jesuit provincial superior in Argentina. He became the archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and was created a cardinal in 2001 by Pope John Paul II. He led the Argentine Church during the December 2001 riots in Argentina. The administrations of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner considered him to be a political rival.
Following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI on 28 February 2013, a papal conclave elected Bergoglio as his successor on 13 March. He chose Francis as his papal name in honour of Saint Francis of Assisi. Throughout his public life, Francis has been noted for his humility, emphasis on God's mercy, international visibility as pope, concern for the poor, and commitment to interreligious dialogue. He is known for having a less formal approach to the papacy than his predecessors, for instance choosing to reside in the Domus Sanctae Marthae guesthouse rather than in the papal apartments of the Apostolic Palace used by previous popes.[2]
Francis has made women full members of dicasteries in the Roman Curia.[3][4] He maintains that the Catholic Church should be more sympathetic toward members of the LGBT community, and has stated that while blessings of same-sex unions are not permitted, the individuals can be blessed, as long as the blessings are not given in a liturgical context.[5] Francis is a critic of unbridled capitalism, consumerism, and overdevelopment;[6] he has made action on climate change a leading focus of his papacy.[7] Widely interpreted as denouncing the death penalty as intrinsically evil,[8] he has termed it "an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person", "inadmissible", and committed the Church to its abolition,[9] saying that there can be "no going back from this position".[10]
In international diplomacy, Francis has criticized the rise of right-wing populism, called for the decriminalization of homosexuality (though still considering same-sex acts as sinful),[11] called for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty, helped to restore full diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba, negotiated a deal with China to define how much influence the Communist Party has in appointing Chinese bishops, and has supported the cause of refugees during the European and Central American migrant crises, calling on the Western World to significantly increase immigration levels.[12][13] In 2022, he apologized for the Church's role in the "cultural genocide" of the Canadian indigenous peoples.[14] On 4 October 2023, Francis convened the beginnings of the Synod on Synodality, described as the culmination of his papacy and the most important event in the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council.[4][15][16] In October 2024, it was revealed that Pope Francis would be the first sitting pope to publish a memoir, Hope, which is set to be published in January 2025.[17]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Francis
Jorge González (31 January 1966 – 22 September 2010)[6][7] was an Argentine professional wrestler, basketball player and actor best known for his appearances in World Championship Wrestling under the ring name El Gigante and in the World Wrestling Federation under the ring name Giant Gonzalez.[8][3] González remains the tallest man to have competed for both companies and the tallest Argentinian to have ever lived.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Gonz%C3%A1lez_(wrestler)
73 22.03.1993 World Wrestling Entertainment Dark: Giant Gonzalez defeats Kamala
WWF Monday Night RAW #10 - Dark Match @ Manhattan Center in New York City, New York, USA
https://www.cagematch.net/?id=2&nr=668&page=4
James Arthur Harris (May 28, 1950 – August 9, 2020),[4] better known by his ring name Kamala, was an American professional wrestler. Nicknamed "The Ugandan Giant", Kamala portrayed a fearsome and simpleminded Ugandan. He wrestled barefoot, clad only in a loincloth, his face painted with war paint and two stars painted on his chest and a moon painted on his stomach. During his ring entrance, he sported an African mask and wielded a spear and shield. He is best known for his appearances with the World Wrestling Federation (now WWE) over the course of numerous runs in the company between 1984 and 2006.[1][5][12]
World Wrestling Federation (1992–1993)
Kamala returned to the WWF on May 9, 1992, with Lombardi reprising the Kim Chee character and Harvey Wippleman acting as his managers. In June 1992, he unsuccessfully challenged Randy Savage for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship. Throughout mid-1992, he wrestled primarily in house shows, with his regular opponents including The Undertaker, Bret Hart, The Texas Tornado, and The Ultimate Warrior.[9][18] Kamala lost to The Undertaker by disqualification at SummerSlam in August 1992. Kamala later claimed that he was paid $13,000 for the bout while The Undertaker was paid $500,000. Professional wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer questioned this claim, saying: "I'm not saying he's lying, but that's hard to believe [...] for there to be that big of a disparity wouldn't make any sense."[8][15] In November 1992, Kamala lost to The Undertaker at Survivor Series in the first ever televised casket match.[32][33][34] In January 1993, Kim Chee and Wippleman began mistreating Kamala, leading him to break away from them and align himself with Reverend Slick, turning face for the first time in his WWF career.
Slick set out to humanize Kamala, leading to a series of skits in which he introduced him to activities such as ten-pin bowling.[8][32][35][36] Kamala feuded with Kim Chee throughout early 1993. In March 1993, he began a series of matches with Bam Bam Bigelow. The two were scheduled to face one another at WrestleMania IX, but the match was canceled.[8] In May 1993, Kamala lost a King of the Ring tournament qualifying match via countout to Mr. Hughes on an episode of WWF Wrestling Challenge. He went on to compete primarily at house shows until being released by the WWF that July.[18][15] In December 1993, Kamala was announced as a participant in the 1994 Royal Rumble Match. During the bout the announcers noted that Virgil, as an alternate participant, had replaced him.[37]
Semi-retirement (1993–1995)
After leaving the WWF once more, Harris stepped back from professional wrestling. He began working as a truck driver using two semi-trailer trucks he had purchased following his series of matches with Hulk Hogan.[8][21] He only wrestled in independent shows and part-time for USWA. In December 1993, he wrestled in India where he won the vacated IAW Tag Team Titles with Dusty Wolfe defeating Leo Burke and the Mongolian Mauler.[38]
World Championship Wrestling (1995)
Main article: Dungeon of Doom
At Hulk Hogan's suggestion, Kamala joined World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in 1995. He was introduced as part of Kevin Sullivan's Dungeon of Doom stable, whose goal was to end Hogan's career. In his first WCW pay-per-view appearance, he defeated "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan at Bash at the Beach. He lost a singles match to Hogan at Clash of the Champions XXXI. He was part of the "Dungeon of Doom" team at Fall Brawl, which lost to Hogan's team, "The Hulkamaniacs".[8]
United States Wrestling Association (1996)
On January 24, 1996, Kamala returned to the USWA for the final time where he teamed with Brian Christopher and PG-13 to defeat Tracey Smothers, Doug Gilbert, Jesse James Armstrong, and Robert Gibson in an Iron Man match.[39]
Late career (2001–2010)
Kamala performing a shoulder claw on Sgt. Slaughter in 2009
Kamala participated in the "Gimmick Battle Royal" at WrestleMania X-Seven and was eliminated by Sgt. Slaughter.[40]
Kamala lost to his nemesis Jerry Lawler at International Wrestling Cartel On July 20, 2002.[41] From 2003 to 2004 he made appearances for Memphis Wrestling.
On July 26, 2004, Kamala made a surprise return to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), participating in a Raw Diva Search segment on RAW, in which the female contestants were instructed to try to seduce him.[42]
Kamala lost to Jim Duggan at WrestleReunion 1 on January 29, 2005.
Kamala faced Randy Orton on the August 11, 2005, edition of SmackDown! (accompanied by Kim Chee) but the match was interrupted by a message from The Undertaker to Orton, and ended in a no contest.[43] Kamala appeared at the 2005 Taboo Tuesday event, as one of the choices for Eugene's tag team partner.[44] He lost the fan vote to Jimmy Snuka, but came to the ring after the match to deliver a big splash to Tyson Tomko.[45] On June 25, 2006, at Vengeance, he accompanied Eugene to the ring (along with Doink the Clown and "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan) to take on Umaga. Umaga quickly won, then attacked all three. But before Kamala and Umaga could fight, Umaga's manager, Armando Estrada, intervened.[46] Umaga defeated Kamala in a match the following night on Raw in his last appearance for the promotion.[16]
On September 30, 2006, Kamala wrestled to a non-finish with Bryan Danielson, in a match for the ROH World Championship at a National Wrestling Alliance event in Bridgeport, Connecticut.[47]
In 2007, Kamala defeated Lanny Poffo at Great North Wrestling event Wrestling Supershow at the Ottawa SuperEX in Ottawa, Canada.[48] Kamala appeared at Total Nonstop Action Wrestling's Slammiversary pay-per-view in June 2008, as a guest at Jay Lethal and SoCal Val's storyline wedding.[49] His last match was on August 15, 2010, at Juggalo Championship Wrestling with the Weedman defeating The Haters (Pauly and Vito Thomaselli).[6]
Professional wrestling style and persona
Writing about his character in March 2021, 411Mania's Ryan Byers called the character "problematic" since it promoted "all sorts of negative stereotypes of Africans and Black people more generally", but praised Harris's performance since "you believed he was what he was portraying, and, more importantly, you believed that he was dangerous".[50]
Personal life
Harris was married twice; his first marriage, to Clara Freeman in 1974, ended in divorce in 2005, while his second, to Emmer Jean Bradley in 2006, lasted until his death.[4] Harris fathered five daughters and a son.[51] Harris lived with his niece Ashley in Senatobia, Mississippi, until moving to Oxford, Mississippi.[16][52]
In July 1993, Harris was called away from a WWF tour after a show in Oakland, California, when his youngest sister and her stepdaughter were shot dead. The killer attempted suicide, but only severely disfigured himself. After his WWF release that August, Harris pushed for the man's arrest and conviction. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, and died in 2013. Harris went on to help raise his surviving niece.[15][16]
Beginning in 1993, Harris wrote, performed, and produced his own music. He wrote over 100 songs. Some discuss his frustration with the working conditions he experienced in the wrestling industry, most notably the low pay. He released his debut album, The Best of Kamala Vol 1, through his official website. The album features a ballad dedicated to the memory of Stanley "Tookie" Williams.[16]
In 2015, Harris completed his autobiography along with one of his wrestling managers, Kenny Casanova, to help him offset medical costs. Kamala Speaks was funded on Kickstarter and self-published in December 2014. It tells his life story, of his wrestling career, and the loss of both of his legs to diabetes.[53]
Health issues
On November 7, 2011, Harris had his left leg amputated below the knee due to complications of high blood pressure and diabetes, a condition he had since 1992, which forced him to retire because he did not accept dialysis treatment.[54] In April 2012, his right leg was also amputated below the knee and a campaign was launched seeking donations to cover his financial needs.[55][56] Harris told Bleacher Report in 2014 that he relied on a disability check, sold handmade wooden chairs, and had recently written a book about his life.[53][15][57]
In July 2016, Harris was named as part of a class action lawsuit filed against WWE which alleged that wrestlers incurred traumatic brain injuries during their tenure and that the company concealed the risks of injury. The suit was litigated by attorney Konstantine Kyros, who has been involved in a number of other lawsuits against WWE.[58] The lawsuit was dismissed by District of Connecticut judge Vanessa Lynne Bryant in September 2018.[59] Mike Johnson of PW Insider wrote that his involvement in the lawsuit likely prevented WWE from inducting him into their Hall of Fame.[60]
On November 19, 2017, Harris underwent life-saving emergency surgery to clear fluid from around his heart and lungs at a hospital in Oxford, Mississippi.[61][52] He was then on life support due to complications.[61] The next day, his stepdaughter said he showed signs of improvement, but remained on life support.[52] On November 22, it was reported that he was able to breathe on his own yet was unable to talk and remained under intensive care.[62]
Death
On August 5, 2020, Harris tested positive for COVID-19 during the COVID-19 pandemic in Mississippi, and was hospitalized. He likely contracted it from one of his numerous weekly visits to the dialysis center, his wife said. Due to COVID-19, he started to experience complications from his diabetes. He went into cardiac arrest on August 9, 2020, dying later that afternoon at the age of 70.[63][64]
Shortly after his death, a GoFundMe page was started to help Harris's family pay for his funeral expenses. The fundraiser ended up surpassing its original goal of $25,000, raising a total of $32,664. Impact Wrestling executive Scott D'Amore donated $2,500 to the cause[65] and fellow wrestler Chris Jericho made a $5,000 donation.[65] This was not the first time that Jericho had donated to a cause involving Harris – in April 2019, a GoFundMe was started by B. Brian Blair, former WWF wrestler and president of the Cauliflower Alley Club, to raise money to prevent Harris from losing his home due to unpaid taxes. Jericho donated $5,000 to this fundraiser as well, pushing the amount raised substantially past the stated goal of $12,750.[66]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_(wrestler)
It was while investigating the Little Rock integration incident in 1957 that I first learned of Pike’s rapid advance in Freemasonry, and knowing that Weishaupt, using Thomas Jefferson and Moses Holbrook, had infiltrated Illuminists into the Masonic Lodges of America, I decided I would find out if the fact that Pike’s mansion in Little Rock had thirteen rooms had any significance. “Thirteen’ figures prominently in Satanic, Luciferian and Cabalistic rituals, codes, and writings, etc. My investigations produced documentary evidence to show that, because of Pike’s exceptional mental ability, he came under the notice of professors in Harvard who were members of the Illuminati, who developed in his mind the ‘idea that a One World Government, a One World Religion and a One World financial and economic system was the ONLY solution to the world’s many and varied problems. I next discovered that his departure from Harvard was not due to lack of finances, or because of a misunderstanding with the faculty over tuition fees, but because of his ‘radical’ ideas and teachings. When he returned home determined that he would ‘fight’ his way to the top despite all opposition, he was in a suitable frame of mind to be recruited as a ‘Minerval’ or ‘apprentice’ into the lower degrees of the Illuminati."
Satan Prince of This World
by William Guy Carr
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Hw94yTrcRzvZjNQOo8T5_w-jqL8v5IMu/view
Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport, also known as Adams Field, is a joint civil-military airport on the east side of Little Rock, Arkansas. It is operated by the Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission.
The largest commercial airport in Arkansas, it served more than 2.1 million passengers in the year spanning from March 2009 through to February 2010.[6] While Clinton National Airport does not have direct international passenger flights, more than 50 flights arrive or depart at Little Rock each day, with nonstop service to 14 cities.[7] The airport is included in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2019–2023, in which it is categorized as a small-hub primary commercial service facility.[8]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_National_Airport
The President William Jefferson Clinton Birthplace Home National Historic Site is located in HOPE, Arkansas.[2] Built in 1917 by Dr. H. S. Garrett, in this house the 42nd president of the United States, Bill Clinton, spent the first four years of his life, having been born on August 19, 1946, at Julia Chester Hospital in HOPE, Arkansas.[3][4] The house was owned by Clinton's maternal grandparents, Edith Grisham and James Eldridge Cassidy, and they cared for him when his mother, Virginia, was away working as an anesthetist in New Orleans.[5]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_William_Jefferson_Clinton_Birthplace_Home_National_Historic_Site
Tragedy and HOPE: A History of the World in Our Time is a work of history written by former Georgetown University professor and historian Carroll Quigley. The book covers the period of roughly 1880 to 1963 and is multidisciplinary in nature though perhaps focusing on the economic problems brought about by the First World War and the impact these had on subsequent events. While global in scope, the book focuses on Western civilization."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_and_Hope
In his first year (1965) in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, Bill Clinton took Quigley's course, receiving a 'B' as his final grade in both semesters (an excellent grade in a course where nearly half the students received D or lower).[1]: 94, 96 In 1991, Clinton named Quigley as an important influence on his aspirations and political philosophy, when Clinton launched his presidential campaign in a speech at Georgetown.[1]: 96 He said he learned from Quigley that “The future can be better than the past, and that each of us has a personal, moral responsibility to make it so.” Bill Clinton told his audiences, “that is what the new choice is all about....We are not here to save the Democratic party. We are here to save the United States of America.” It was Clinton's most effective speech, and he repeated variations time and time again as the blueprint for his campaign message in winning the Democratic nomination and the general election for President of the United States in 1992.[21][22]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll_Quigley
Theorists also cite the inclusion of Bill Clinton at the meetings in 1991 before he was president and Tony Blair’s presence in 1993 before he became the British prime minister as examples of the group’s power. Past attendees have included former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (who will also be attending this year), former Chase Manhattan chief executive David Rockefeller, and British Prime Minister David Cameron."
Bilderberg Group: What To Know About the Secretive Meetings
https://time.com/4362872/bilderberg-group-meetings-2016-conspiracy-theories/
Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner October 20, 2016 Donald Trump Hillary Clinton Henry Kissinger Gayle King Cardinal Dolan Katie Couric Chuck Schumer Mayor Bill de Blasio"
https://www.facebook.com/MariaBartiromo/posts/alfred-e-smith-memorial-foundation-dinner-october-20-2016-donald-trump-hillary-c/1353937201283479/
HOPE: all hope is to be placed in God, and with what degree of perfection [67]; eternal life alone is to be hoped for as a reward [82]; the extent to which this hope should be of assistance [288]; how hope should be shown by the dying | 595]; hope in the preservation and growth of the Society [812]. See also Faithfulness" The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and Their Complimentary Norms pg. 464
https://jesuitas.lat/uploads/the-constitutions-of-the-society-of-jesus-and-their-complementary-norms/Constitutions%20and%20Norms%20SJ%20ingls.pdf
Bill Clinton ‘Encouraged’ Trump to Run
SLICK WILLY
Updated Apr. 14, 2017 10:12AM EDT /
Published Aug. 05, 2015 3:33PM EDT
https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2015/08/05/bill-clinton-encouraged-trump
I began by attending Fordham University in the Bronx, mostly because I wanted to be close to home. I got along very well with the Jesuits who ran the school, but after two years, I decided that as long as I had to be in college, I might as well test myself against the best. I applied to the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania and I got in. At the time, if you were going to make a career in business, Wharton was the place to go. Harvard Business School may produce a lot of CEOs—guys who manage public companies— but the real entrepreneurs all seemed to go to Wharton: Saul Steinberg, Leonard Lauder, Ron Perelman—the list goes on and on."
Donald Trump The Art of the Deal
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DLcbnLrl6moQT7nGj1JitG6AiQ6qgK0y/view?usp=sharing
University of Scranton welcomes President Biden
The university has illuminated its Class of 2020 Gateway in red and blue lights.
Author: WNEP Web Staff
Published: 10:52 PM EDT October 19, 2021
Updated: 10:52 PM EDT October 19, 2021
SCRANTON, Pa. — In preparation for President Joe Biden's visit, a university lit up their lights in his honor.
The University of Scranton has illuminated its Class of 2020 Gateway in blue and red with the number 46 prominently displayed to welcome the 46th president."
University of Scranton welcomes President Biden | wnep.com
https://www.wnep.com/article/news/local/lackawanna-county/university-of-scranton-welcomes-president-biden-gateway-lights/523-cdba68b1-822b-4747-94be-4cd7e4de9d67
"His son, Hunter Biden, 38, is a longtime federal lobbyist for the Jesuit university located in his father's hometown, Scranton PA. According to federal disclosures, Hunter Biden has been earning about $80,000 a year since 2006 to lobby for this university. Senator Biden himself has lectured at the Jesuit University of Scranton, and received an honorary degree from the same university, in 1976."
Codeword Barbelon
by P.D. Stuart
Trump and Harris neck-and-neck as she prepares to announce VP pick after meeting candidates Sunday: Live
Harris met with top running mate contenders Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro at her Washington DC residence
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/kamala-harris-vp-pick-trump-polls-news-b2591106.html
San Francisco's 555 California St., co-owned by Trump, on lender watchlist
The beautiful, very great, big league skyscraper, still allegedly 30% owned by Donald Trump, is on a lender watchlist, according to Bloomberg
By Alex Shultz,
Politics editor, SFGATE
Updated Feb 23, 2023 3:40 p.m.
https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/san-francisco-building-trump-stake-on-watchlist-17801816.php
Early life and education
Harris's childhood home at 1227 Bancroft Way in Berkeley, August 2020
Kamala Devi Harris[a] was born in Oakland, California,[3] on October 20, 1964.[4] Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan (1938–2009), was a biologist who arrived in the United States from India in 1958 to enroll in graduate school in endocrinology at the University of California, Berkeley. A research career of over 40 years followed, during which her work on the progesterone receptor gene led to advances in breast cancer research.[5] Kamala's father, Donald J. Harris (1938–),[6] is an Afro-Jamaican who immigrated to the United States in 1961 and also enrolled in UC Berkeley, specializing in development economics. The first Black scholar to be granted tenure at Stanford University's economics department, he has emeritus status there.[7] Kamala's parents met in 1962 and married in 1963.[8]
The Harris family lived in Berkeley until they moved in 1966, around Kamala's second birthday. The Harrises lived for a few years in college towns in the MIDWEST where her parents held teaching or research positions:[9] Urbana, Illinois (where her sister Maya was born in 1966); Evanston, Illinois; and Madison, Wisconsin.[b][10][9][11] By 1970, the marriage had faltered, and Shyamala moved back to Berkeley with her two daughters;[12][13][9] the couple divorced when Kamala was seven.[8] In 1972, Donald Harris accepted a position at Stanford University; Kamala and Maya spent weekends at their father's house in Palo Alto and lived at their mother's house in Berkeley during the week.[14] Shyamala was friends with African-American intellectuals and activists in Oakland and Berkeley.[11] In 1976, she accepted a research position at the McGill University School of Medicine, and moved with her daughters to Montreal, Quebec.[15][16] Kamala graduated from Westmount High School on Montreal Island in 1981.[17]
Early career
In 1990, Harris was hired as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, California, where she was described as "an able prosecutor on the way up".[27] In 1994, Speaker of the California Assembly Willie BROWN, who was then dating Harris, appointed her to the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and later to the California Medical Assistance Commission.[27] In February 1998, San Francisco district attorney Terence Hallinan recruited Harris as an assistant district attorney.[28] There, she became the chief of the Career Criminal Division, supervising five other attorneys, where she prosecuted homicide, burglary, robbery, and sexual assault cases—particularly three-strikes cases. In August 2000, Harris took a job at San Francisco City Hall, working for city attorney Louise Renne.[29] Harris ran the Family and Children's Services Division, representing child abuse and neglect cases. Renne endorsed Harris during her D.A. campaign.[30]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris
Donald Jasper Harris, OM (born August 23, 1938) is a Jamaican-American economist and professor emeritus at Stanford University, known for applying post-Keynesian ideas to development economics.[1]
He is the father of US Vice President and current Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris and lawyer Maya Harris.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Harris
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump
Trump International, Scotland
@TrumpScotland
Donald J Trump, 45th President of the United States, announced today the start of a new golf venture in Scotland: the MacLeod course, to be built at Trump International Scotland in Aberdeenshire in honor of his late mother Mary Anne MacLeod.
10:47 AM · May 1, 2023
https://x.com/TrumpScotland/status/1653093764271857666
James Francis Edward Stuart (10 June 1688 – 1 January 1766) [a] was the House of Stuart claimant to the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland from 1701 until his death in 1766. The only son of James II of England and his second wife, Mary of Modena, he was Prince of Wales and heir until his Catholic father was deposed and exiled in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. His Protestant half-sister Mary II and her husband William III became co-monarchs. As a Catholic, he was subsequently excluded from the succession by the Act of Settlement 1701.
Raised primarily in France and Italy, when his father died in September 1701 James claimed the thrones. As part of the War of the Spanish Succession, in 1708 Louis XIV of France backed a landing in Scotland on his behalf. This failed, as did further attempts in 1715 and 1719. Led by his elder son Charles Edward Stuart, the 1745 Rising was the last serious effort to restore the House of Stuart.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Francis_Edward_Stuart
The Templars in America
One of the requirements of the Beast empire is that it be a democratic nation born of Templar French Freemasonry, the father of modern democracy.
Michael Baigent, co-author of The Temple and The Lodge, has traced the movement of the Templars to America. He discovered that Sionist English Freemasonry reigned supreme in Boston until a higher degree Templar lodge was warranted in 1756 by Grand Lodge Scotland. "There were thus two rival Provincial Grand Lodges in Boston," says Baigent, "St. John's, under the aegis of the Grand Lodge of England, and St. Andrew's, under the aegis of Grand Lodge of Scotland.... And on 28 August 1769, St. Andrew's conferred, for the first time anywhere in the world, a new Freemasonic degree - specifically called the Knights Templar Degree."23
Shortly thereafter another form of Templar Freemasonry came to America. The quasi-Jacobite Grand Lodge of York warranted lodges in Virginia.24 York Rite Freemasonry created additional degrees in the New World until it reached the 13th and final degree, known as the Knights Templar degree.
Thirteen-degree Templar York Rite Masonry, having ceased operation in England after establishing its base in the New World, exists today only in North America. Michael Baigent was able to trace the westward migration of the Templars by following their esoteric number "13." As you recall, the original Templar order consisted of thirteen degrees. The number "13" also commemorates Friday the 13th, 1307, the day persecution of the Templars began. In 1314, Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was burned at the stake. Only in America, says Baigent, has the Templar Grand Master received his most flattering and lavish public homage, in the form of a youth organization sponsored by Freemasonry, the Order of DeMolay.
Templar Military Lodges
The Templars also stealthily entered America through military lodges. Of particular significance are those chartered by the Irish Grand Lodge, which offered the higher degrees of Jacobite Masonry. Later these lodges incorporated the French Templar Scottish Rite degrees, further dividing colonial America between two rival forms of Freemasonry. While British politics in the colonies was dominated by English Masons in the Northeast, her military was under the influence of French Templar Field Lodges throughout the colonies - not a stable union for governing "13" rebellious colonies.2
European Templars Settle America
Another identifying characteristic of the Beast's revived Roman empire, according to our analysis of Daniel 7:7-8 in chapter 26, is that it must be populated by immigrants from the territory governed by the old Roman empire. Of course colonial America was populated by peoples from a Europe shaped by ancient Rome and later by the Holy Roman Empire. Templar influence in America began after Prince Charles Edward, the Young Stuart Pretender, failed to regain his British throne. As you recall, in 1746 he was soundly defeated, forever dashing the hopes of Scottish Templars recapturing England. As a result, many Irish and Scottish Templar Jacobites who had fought with Charles Stuart fled to America. Those who returned to France with the Prince founded the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.
Between 1745 and 1753, the British and European Templar population in the New World had increased dramatically. In 1754 Benjamin Franklin attempted to relieve population pressure by proposing a plan for the union of all 13 colonies. The British government rejected Franklin's proposal, fearing a united America would be difficult to control. Subsequently, the exploding population was forced to move west into French territory, which precipitated the French and Indian War in America, a phase of the Seven Years War on the continent of Europe. During this war the French military brought to the New World the Templar Scottish Rite, first setting up base at Boston, then Charleston, S.C.26 Michael Baigent, in The Temple and The Lodge, explains:
Prior to the Seven Years War, most of the Freemasonry in North America was orthodox pro- Hanoverian, warranted by Grand Lodge [London]. During the Seven Years War, however, "higher degree" [Templar] Freemasonry, by means of regimental field lodges, was transplanted on a large scale to the American colonies and quickly took root. Boston - the soil from which the American Revolution was to spring - exemplifies the process of transplantation and the friction that sometimes arose from it.27
Benjamin Franklin: Templar Spy Master
Benjamin Franklin became a Mason in February 1731 and Provincial Grand Master of Pennsylvania in 1734, and again in 1749. In 1756 he was inducted into the Royal Society in absensia. (The Royal Society, you may recall, was an English Masonic front organization for the Rosicrucian Priory of Sion.)
Between 1757 and 1762, and again between 1764 and 1775, Franklin spent considerable time in England and France. While in England, he discovered English Freemasonry's "Secret Doctrine" for America. Franklin was in London in 1775 when he was made aware that war between the colonies and Great Britain might break out at any moment, so in March he returned to Philadelphia. Later that year he attended the Second Continental Congress, through which he helped draft the Declaration of Independence. In 1776 he was sent to Paris where he came in contact with the Illuminati. Franklin learned of the esoteric significance of the number "13" and the Illuminati plan for the "13" American colonies. He stayed in Paris only a short while, returning to America with this important information. On the afternoon of July 4, 1776, he, with two other Masons, were appointed by the Continental Congress to design the Great Seal of the United States of America, which would include the Seal of the Illuminati.
Baigent suggests that Franklin favored the Illuminati plan to create a New World democracy, a "Philosophical Atlantis," over the British plan for an oligarchic expansion of empire. When Franklin was in France, he began to build a spy network in preparation for America's independence from England. Baigent gives us the details:
On 9 November [1777], a special committee - the "Committee of Congress for Secret Correspondence" - was appointed to establish a network of contacts among "our friends abroad." This committee consisted of Robert Morris, John Jay, Benjamin Harrison, John Dickinson and Benjamin Franklin. It was to operate extensively through Freemasonic channels and to lead to the creation of an elaborate spy network. At the same time, and quite coincidentally, it was to overlap a British spy network which ran parallel to it and also operated through Freemasonic channels. Both networks were to be based primarily in Paris, which became the centre for a vast web of espionage, intrigue and shifting allegiances.28
Spying was not foreign to Franklin. As Deputy Postmaster General for the American colonies from the 1750s until 1775, he became particularly friendly with his British counterpart, Sir Francis Dashwood, who moved in Jacobite Masonic circles. Dashwood also had Masonic friends who were staunch supporters of Charles Edward Stuart. While in England Franklin stayed at Dashwood's estate. Michael Baigent gives us more details about the "traditional" role of spymaster incumbent upon Postmasters-General:
Because it afforded access to virtually all letters, all communications, the position of Postmaster-General was also traditionally that of spymaster. And during the American War for Independence, their experience as Postmasters-General was to stand both Dashwood and Franklin in good stead.
In his dual role of spymaster and colonial ambassador to France, Franklin established his centre of operations in Paris. He was accompanied here by two other appointees of the Congressional Committee for Secret Correspondence, Silas Deane and Arthur Lee. Lee's brother was based in London. So, too, was Franklin's sister, who is also believed to have been engaged in espionage.29
Franklin's sister introduced Franklin to the Howe brothers, one a General in the British Army, the other an Admiral, both of whom belonged to Templar military lodges in the colonial theater of operation. As Templars they were favorable to the rebellion. And in fact in 1781 the Howe brothers were accused of "belonging to a 'faction' which conspired to facilitate the colonists' bid for independence."30
Franklin's Templar Masonic friends in the postal service and in the military also had Templar sympathizers in the British Parliament. These traitors to the British Crown clandestinely raised money for the Colonial Continental Army and remitted it to Franklin in Paris. Franklin passed it on to North America, or used it in France to purchase arms and material. In 1778 Franklin joined the Illuminati lodge "Neuf Soeurs" (Nine Sisters), assisting in the initiation of Voltaire. Later he became Grand Master of the Lodge. In 1782 Franklin joined a more elusive and mysterious Freemasonic conclave, the Royal Lodge of Commanders of the Temple West.
As stated earlier, the British spy network in Paris was also Masonic. Its agents had penetrated Franklin's operation by joining his Nine Sisters' Lodge. Thus, "the British government was kept apprised not only of the colonists' activities, but also of French plans for entering the war."31
British knowledge of the impending colonial revolt did not, however, reach ears in America, because the British colonial high command in charge of the Crown's army and navy in the New World (namely the Howe brothers) were Templar Freemasons solidly in the camp of Franklin. To guarantee the success of the American Revolution, the Howe brothers displayed dilatory conduct throughout the war.
A Templar American Revolution
The war for American independence was a continuation of the battle between English and French Freemasonry. The conflict over the control of "New Atlantis" originated in Boston between two adversarial lodges, Sionist St. John's and Templar St. Andrew's. Among the members of St. Andrew's were John Hancock and Paul Revere. To the south in Virginia were two other Templar Masons, Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee, who in 1769 prompted the Virginia Assembly to formally condemn the British government. Events swiftly accelerated toward open conflict between England and her American colonies. In 1770 the famous Boston Massacre occurred when British sentries killed five rioters. In 1771 thirteen rebels were executed for treason in North Carolina. In 1772 two prominent Freemasons, John Brown and Abraham Whipple, had attacked a customs ship off Rhode Island and burned it. In 1773 the British government increased the tax on tea to keep the British East India Company solvent. In retaliation, Templar Masons from St. Andrew's Lodge dressed as Mohawk Indians, boarded the Dartmouth in Boston harbor and dumped its tea overboard. This was the famous "Boston Tea Party" that is said to have triggered the American Revolution.32
It took three months for the news of the "Boston Tea Party" to reach London, whereupon the British Parliament declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion. Not realizing the significance of the Masonic division in the colonies, the Crown's action was swift and misguidedly drastic. The "Boston Port Bill," which placed an embargo on all trade with Boston, for example, effectively closed the port,33 and stiffened colonial resolve against the Crown.
On September 5, 1774, the First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia to plan action against the British. The Congress was under the presidency of Templar Freemason Peyton Randolph, a prominent attorney and Provincial Grand Master of Virginia. Boston delegates included Samuel Adams and Paul Revere. In February 1775, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress met and announced plans for armed resistance. Within a month Templar Freemason Patrick Henry made his famous speech - "Give me liberty, or give me death" - to Virginia's Provincial Assembly. On April 18, 1775, 700 British troops were dispatched outside Boston. Templar Freemason Paul Revere made his famous ride, announcing "The Red Coats are coming!" The Templar bid to take America from Rosicrucian England had begun.34
Scarlet and the Beast
by John Daniel
https://ia803001.us.archive.org/28/items/ScarletAndTheBeastJohnDaniel1995/Scarlet%20and%20the%20Beast,%20John%20Daniel%20(1995).pdf
https://www.facebook.com/4williamdunn/posts/pfbid022MyAKmRrx1vVfos6yueAVuCZHKekrc9gKrsPpNb3fUL3s5c3UmTSGHoBQgfX3cG7l
THE NEW AGE
GOD'S PLAN IN AMERICA C. WILLIAM SMITH, New Orleans, La. September 1950
THERE are three plans in action in America today and they all have different purposes. The first plan is God's plan, a nonsectarian plan; the second is the Roman Catholic plan, and this is a denominational or sectarian plan, and the third is the Communistic plan, an anticapitalist plan.
God's plan is dedicated to the unification of all races, religions and creeds. This plan, dedicated to the new order of things, is to make all things new-s new nation, a new race, a new civilization and a new religion, a nonsectarian religion that has already been recognized and called the religion of "The Great Light."
Looking back into history, we can easily see that the Guiding Hand of Providence has chosen the Nordic people to bring in and unfold the new order of the world. Records clearly show that 95 percent of the colonists were Nordics-Anglo-Saxons.
Providence has chosen the Nordics because the Nordics have prepared themselves and have chosen God. They are not church worshippers, for they worship God's word-the Holy Bible. The Nordics are. the great Bible-reading people of the world today, and the Nordics-Anglo-Saxons -were the first people to print the Holy Bible in great quantity, and they were known as the people of a book, that book being the Holy Bible.
But, in order to read the Bible, it is necessary to know how to read. In the Nordic race there is no illiteracy. In Norway there has been no illiteracy for more than a hundred years. Another fact that shows clearly that the Nordics are God's chosen people this time is they are always looking for more light on the mission of life.
Looking at their station of life, these great Bible-reading people should open the eyes of the world, King Gustaf of Sweden is a great light in the nonsectarian Masonic Brotherhood, and King Haakon of Norway is a Masonic light in Norway.
The late King Christian of Denmark was a Masonic spirit in his Denmark; also King George of England is a Masonic light to his Anglo-Saxon people. Just as Providence has chosen the Jewish race-the children of Israel-to bring into the world righteousness by carrying the "Ten Commandments" which emphasize 'Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy," so also Providence has chosen the Nordic race to unfold the 'New Age" of the world-a "Novus Ordo Seclorum." One of the first of the Nordics to reach the New World was the Viking, Leif Ericsson. He sailed from Norway to bring his people in Iceland a new message, the message of the Chritian God. But Providence moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform, and so Leif the Lucky was sent by Providence to the New World. From the abundance of grapes found there Leif Ericsson called the place Vinland. It is easy to sense that Leif Ericsson was sent by the Guiding Hand of Providence to bring the Norse spirit of the "All-Father" to the shores of the New World.
The Nordics are the highest branch of the fifth Aryan Civilization.; The Latins are of the fourth Aryan Civilization, and the American race will be the sixth Aryan Civilization. This new and great civilization is like an American Beauty rosebud, ready to open and send its wonderful fragrance to all the world. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Paine and many others of the founders of the New World were Nordics. Thomas Paine, the spark plug of the American Revolution, loved God but hated sectarianism. In 'These Are the times," he wrote: "We have it in our power to begin the world all over again! A situation familiar to the present hath not happened since the days of Noah, till now. The birthday of a New World is at hand."
As stated before, God's Plan in America is nonsectarian plan. Our Constitution is nonsectarian. Our great American Public Schools-God's chosen schools-are nonsectarian. The Great Spirit behind this great nation is nonsectarian.
Our great American Public Schools have never taken away from any child the freedom of will, freedom of Spirit or freedom of mind. That is the divine reason that Great God our King has chosen the great American Public Schools to pave the way for the new race, the new religion and the new civilization that is taking place in America.
Any mother, father or guardian who is responsible for taking away of freedom of mind, freedom of will or freedom of spirit is the lowest criminal on this earth, because they take away from that child the God-given right to become a part of God's great plan in America for the dawn of the New Age of the world."
The Official Organ of The Supreme Council 33° A. & A. Scottish Rite of Freemasonry S. J.
U. S. A.
PUBLISHED AT 1735 SIXTEENTH STREET N, W. WASHINGTON, D. C.
The philosophy at the core of all the Mystery Schools is secular humanism, the foundation and the font of socialism/communism. Most socialists/communists don't have the slightest idea that they are puppets of an arcane philosophy bent upon world domination. They actually believe they will ultimately realize a world where everything is free courtesy of Big Brother and where all risk and worry has disappeared... any such world would only be a world of slaves dependent upon an elite class of "Masters".
The Knights Templar were an communist organization symbolized by the two knights riding one horse. Each initiate had to give up all wealth, property, and worldly goods to the Order. Each performed according to his ability and received according to the need of his position within the order. They were pledged to absolute and unquestioning obedience to their superior Knight or knights, the Grand Master, and the Order. In that respect every knight and every piece of property, all wealth, was totally owned and controlled by the Order.
According to MAJESTYTWELVE the Knights Templar have become the driving influence at the highest levels of all the secret societies among the adepts known as the Illuminati. The most accessible font of their influence will be found in the (Cecil Rhodes) Roundtable Group (The Group), The Royal Institute Of International Affairs, the Church of Saint John the Divine in New York City, the Council On Foreign Relations, the Jason Society, the Skull and Bones Society (Russell Trust), the Scroll and Key Fraternity, the highest Degrees of the York and Scottish Rites of Freemasonry, the Ancient Order of Rosae Crucae, and many other secret societies which collectively make up the modern equivalent of the "Brotherhood of the Snake" also known as (a.k.a.) the "Guardians," the "Builders," the "Philosophers of Fire," or the "Illuminati".
The Philosophy of the Mystery Schools is the Luciferian Philosophy as espoused by General (Christopher) Albert Pike, one of the founders of the KKK. But it is not his original thought... he just expounded upon it in forms that eventually became accessible to those who seek it out. Christopher means Christ-like. To the adept, Albert Pike achieved a mystical apotheosis in the Lodge of Perfection and brought forth the Christ within. He thus became Christed taking on the name Christopher.
Watch "StarTrek" from the beginning episodes up to the present, and you will begin to realize that it was an indoctrination into the concepts of socialism through subliminal initiation of the youth of the nation. The Captains James T. Kirk (JTK = K(nights) (of the) T(emple) (of) J(erusalem) and Christopher Pike are symbolic salutes to the Order of the Templars, and to the Brotherhoods greatest philosopher and probably its most prolific writer the Christed General Albert Pike. The Enterprise represents their great work or plan which if navigated properly will lead them to the realization of their dream of a united socialist utopian world.
"As nearly as I can concentrate on the question today, I believe I am God; certainly you are, I think we intelligent beings on this planet are all a piece of God, are becoming God." Interview with Gene Roddenberry in "Star Trek Creator" by David Alexander, Roc, an imprint of Dutton Signet a division of Penguin Books New York, page 568, par 1
Those who understand the symbolic language will have noticed that the most recent Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Award Ceremony recognized the coming of the New Dawn. The rising Sun on the backdrop and the two triple crowns of the Mysteries representing the Trinity of Osiris, Isis, and the child Horus were revealing. Trooping before it were the Stars, some of the thousand points of light, who make the movies that mold the minds of the sheople, creating the future world.
Very simply the Luciferian philosophy is, "Adam and Eve were held prisoner in the bonds of ignorance by an unjust and vindictive God in the Garden of Eden. They were set free from their chains (Evolution through "Primordial Knowing") by Lucifer (Prometheus) through his agent Satan in the guise of a serpent (ancient symbol of Wisdom) with the gift of Intellect (Fire). Through the use of his intellect man will perfect the race (Anglo/Aryan) and will himself become God (promise of Satan to Adam and Eve)." Any religion, church, organization, or People who believe they are God, will become God, or are becoming God is practicing the Luciferian philosophy of the Mystery Schools, and are acting in furtherance of the conspiracy.
The Luciferian philosophy is a metaphor for the development of the perfected man (Marxist/Leninist) through the process of evolution by learning how to dominate and control nature (called science). The result (they say) will be the apotheosis of the race of mankind and the elimination of all who cannot make this paradigm shift in the coming New Age. The Soviet Union was the most perfect expression of illuminist secular humanist philosophy that has ever been presented before the eyes of an ignorant but gullible public. Now they strive for enslavement of the human race in the new utopia. This will be brought about through deception, manipulation, and psychological operations which make up the art of illusion called magic.
The Alchemists had the same religion but disguised it under the profane interpretation of the exoteric or outward expression of mutating lead into gold. The search for the philosophers stone was the attempt to perfect the race (Anglo/Aryan) and lead the evolution of what the Illuminati believe to be the inferior races of mankind, what they believe to be useless eaters.
Those who are attracted to the Mysteries who are unable to grasp the esoteric meaning of their education often take the exoteric interpretation to be truth. They often turn to Satan or Lucifer (Light) as their object of worship never understanding the metaphor for a much deeper philosophy. These Satan worshipers are useful. They furnish a diversion and are often a source of large sums of money. The Brotherhood has seldom found itself lacking in fools or funds. Ex-FBI operative Ted Gunderson is the hegelian tool in this instance pointing you off after Satanists, a cull-d-sac where you will chase your own tail round, and round, and round. I do not believe that Ted knows that he is being used in this regard. I may be wrong.
Shirley McClain understands the philosophy, though probably not in its correct interpretation. She is a member in good standing. "I am GOD," is her message.
Fire (Intellect, Light, Illumination) is the God of the Mysteries and its Priests are the Philosophers of Fire (Illumined Ones or Illuminati). They believe that any concept of creation must contain the idea that all things are manifestations of a supreme force (Pantheism). Since man is the only creation with intelligence and original thought, they believe that the combined, or collective consciousness of mankind, is the mind of the Great Architect of the Universe, ergo Man IS GOD. And that should "enlighten" you to the source of some of the more difficult to understand concepts of the New Age movement.
Please do not get the fool (profane = you) mixed up with the adepts, or Fraternitis Rex Mundi, or Brotherhood (Illuminati) of the king of the World (Lucifer or Satan). Those who cannot understand this philosophy through the occult language of symbology and make the shift in thinking for the coming millenium may be doomed to extinction. The spokespersons for the New Age make no secret of their intent in that regard.
This is the age of deception. The world is on the razor. One half is scheduled to be exterminated if these people have their way, and the other half is scheduled to be enslaved when the mystical union between the moon IS (Isis or Church) and the sun RA (Osiris or Doctrine) greets the Son of the morning EL (Horus or full body of Adepts) on the horizon (Horus risen) in the New Dawn (ISRAEL or realization of the New World Order). When the process is complete a new worldwide Soviet Union will emerge to thin the herd, shear the sheople, and march them off to enslavement or slaughter depending upon their individual ability to accept and adhere to their reeducation.
A prime illustration of the symbology of the Mystery Schools is the following Art Bell logo.
Notice the hidden messages, A.L. and R.T. Bel? Can you decipher them? Notice that a capstone is in place? Did you notice Bel is placed above the capstone by the flying arrow? Do you know what that means? Did you spot the all seeing eye?
Here is a clue... A.L. is the abbreviation for the Latin which translates Year of Light referring to the year 6,000 when the Illuminati believe Prometheus, Lucifer, Baal, Bel, Satan, the angel of light who was cast out of heaven, will triumph over God and mount the throne in the north (A metaphor for the triumph of socialism over religion, nation states, and the common herd). A.L. can be found by adding 4,000 to the current year, 1998 + 4000 = 5998. All who say they are Light Workers are engaged in the battle against God on Lucifer's behalf.
I have long recognized that Art Bell is a shill for the New World Odor. It is confirmed in his book . World government is, in fact, the theme of the book.
Did you know that the sea (mare or Mary) is a symbol of vast numbers of People, the masses in Marxist symbology? Did you notice that the pyramid rises from the sea (People) and dominates the scene as a promise, or savior? Did you know the pyramid missing the capstone represents the Great (unfinished) Work of the Mystery School? Did you know that the Great Work represents social engineering (socialism) working toward the apotheosis of the race (perfected man, sixth root race) as promised to Adam and Eve by Satan, and a New World Order? Did you notice that the name Art Bell straddles the capstone signifying that he is the Light Worker, or Illumined Man, or Master Mason, or Horus, or perfected god-Man, or Savior, who completes the Great Work? Did you notice the Bright Star fallen from heaven just above the capstone? Do you know who or what it represents? Do you see the Thousand Points of Light working in silence behind the veil (clouds) in the heavens. Illuminism is Marxism. It is a false promise that the human race will be perfected bringing a perfect utopian society through social engineering. This is a brainwashing mechanism whereby an ignorant slave race may be created to be ruled by a totalitarian socialist world government.
Art Bell is a Freemason. He is a member of the Illuminati. Art Bell's book The Quickening is one of the most blatant, in your face, pieces of new world order propaganda that I have ever seen. In it Art Bell, claiming to be a patriotic American, shamelessly advocates the formation of a world totalitarian socialist government.
"Will there be a global government with a benevolent dictator, overseeing global law, global police and a global judiciary in an attempt to make the world cleaner, peaceful and prosperous? If that's what it takes to achieve these ends, so be it." -- from The Quickening by Art Bell, page 309
The Art Bell Overnight and Dreamland radio shows dish up nightly servings of ridiculous, outrageous, and fantastic conspiracy fantasies. Occasionally Bell stirs in legitimate, real and dangerous conspiracies. Although Art Bell pretends to be serious, the mix of incredulous fantasy with fact serves to debunk all conspiracies. Bell effectively implants the idea that anyone who believes in any conspiracy is a whacked out nutcase that should be locked up in a mental institution. He is a most effective change agent operating on behalf of our enemies.
The conspiracy is racist, considering Blacks, Hispanics, and Aboriginal Peoples to be inferior races of useless eaters. They believe or at least profess that the Anglo/Aryan race is the true Israel (British Israel and Christian Identity for the dupes and an Anglophile Secular Humanism for the leaders) and thus the Master race. They have convinced the so-called useless eaters that they are friends, benefactors, and protectors. In the meantime they plan to enslave these poor People under socialism or eliminate them altogether. The Illuminati has convinced them that Karl Marx is their savior, and the sheople follow this Judas goat eagerly.
There will be no individual Rights only privileges. These will be granted or denied at will by the world supra government. All property is to be owned by the State. There will be a redistribution of wealth. They plan to eliminate class differences and reduce the standard of living to a lower level in the advanced nations, such as the united States, and to a higher standard of living in the so-called third world nations. This leveling of the standard of living will be accomplished through a global economic collapse which is in its beginning stages. The economic collapse will fulfill the goal of Marx and Engles' Communist Manifesto mandating the elimination of the middle class. The graduated income tax was the first implementation of this process and is one of the planks of the Communist Manifesto. NAFTA and GATT are a part of this process encouraging industry to move into third-world nations in order to exploit cheap labor.
All existing religions will disappear. The only religion will be the state religion (humanism or illuminism).
All County and State governments will be eliminated and replaced with regional government. These regional governments (Home Rule) are already in place. Regionalism is gradually taking control throughout America.
There will be no more cash. Trade will be accomplished by a system of computer credits with accounts accessed through debit cards or computer chip implants. The cards or implants will also serve as personal identification, drivers license, and etc. When this is completed the human race will be shackled to a computer in a never ending cycle of debt. No action or movement will ever again be private.
The plan for the creation of a socialist world government is protected by an artificial extraterrestrial threat from space. The entire UFO phenomenon and the uFOOLogy movement has been created to further the protection and activation of the plan.
Within MAJESTYTWELVE is Operation Majority justifying the plan by presenting an extraterrestrial threat as the reason for the necessity for world government ala "Who speaks for planet Earth... Argentina?" Exactly the manner in which Stanton T. Friedman ends his UFOs Are Real lectures.
Operation Majority is named after the original Bolshevik party which sparked the Russian Revolution. Bolshevik means the majority. The plan claims that if the American people are ever told of this extraterrestrial presence aliens will destroy the United States. All who have access to the plan or who inadvertently discover the plan are silenced by that warning. They believe in the government and thus believe the extraterrestrial lie. These dupes do not know that the Illuminati are the aliens who plan to destroy the United States of America in any event.
The natural skepticism of reporters insures that anyone who believes in extraterrestrial visitation or who links the so-called alien threat with the coming world government will be ridiculed and discredited.
When I saw Operation Majority while serving in the Navy I believed the alien threat was real just like everyone else. It was not until I had performed many years of research that I was able to fully understand exactly what it was that I had seen. It was extremely difficult for me to believe that my government and the United States Navy had used me, especially since I had dedicated my life to government and military service. Most government and military personnel cannot and will not believe such and idea.
The plan is real. The extraterrestrial threat is artificial. The threat is presented through the use of secret technology originally developed by the Germans in their secret weapons programs during WW-II, by geniuses like Nikola Tesla, and many others.
Military and government personnel who have access to this material believe it is real. None of them, however, has ever seen any evidence of the existence of any extraterrestrial creature nor any advanced technology other that that of human origin. It is not what they see that convinces them it is extraterrestrial in origin but the manner in which it is presented. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to believe that Top Secret government or military documentation could be lies. It is trust in government by men and women who have given their lives in its service that keeps this monumental lie a alive.
All so-called leaks are intentional misinformation projects designed to promote the alien threat scenario while allowing for complete deniability on the part of government. The antics of Vicki (Cooper) Ecker (CIA), Donald Francis Ecker III (Dupe), William Moore, Jaime Shandera, Stanton T. Friedman, Bruce Maccabee (CIA, ONI), Barry Taff PhD.(Pneuropsychiatric Institute of UCLA worked with recently deceased Dr. Louis Jollyn "Jolly" West), Whitley Strieber, Bud Hopkins (CIA), John Lear (CIA), Linda Moulton Howe Order of the Eastern Star and American Federation of Human Rights (American co-masonry), Art Bell (Freemason), Glen Campbell, George Knapp (Freemason), Colonel Philip Corso (CIA, a monumental liar now Deceased), Richard Hoagland and his Face on Mars, the so-called alien autopsy film, NASA and the Apollo Moon Missions, the so-called Mars Meteorite which was fraudulently promoted as containing fossil evidence of life on Mars, the War Of The Worlds, and many other people and events are projects of this type. Some (very few) of these People are unwitting accomplices in the charade and truly believe in the extraterrestrial threat.
Most of those named, and others not named, are active, and with full knowledge, agents of illuminism/socialism. The most well known are active Fellow Travelers, communist agents of the KGB, the Central Intelligence Agency, or one of the many psychological warfare agencies founded by the Rhodes Round Table Group (The Group), the Royal Institute of International Affairs, and the Council On Foreign Relations.
MAJESTYTWELVE by William Cooper Copyright © 1997 William Cooper All Rights Reserved
HOTT - MAJESTYTWELVE (hourofthetime.com)
https://www.hourofthetime.com/majestyt.htm
The Templars, like all other Secret Orders and Associations, had two doctrines, one concealed and reserved for the Masters, which was Johannism; the other public, which was the Roman Catholic. Thus they deceived the adversaries whom they sought
XXX.
KNIGHT KADOSH.
Morals and Dogma
by Albert Pike
https://sacred-texts.com/mas/md/md31.htm
Thirteenth Rule. To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it, believing that between Christ our Lord, the Bridegroom, and the Church, His Bride, there is the same Spirit which governs and directs us for the salvation of our souls. Because by the same Spirit and our Lord Who gave the ten Commandments, our holy Mother the Church is directed and governed."
The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YC_luOfFWl0Bm0BWkbANKZGC1kkmdHQf/view?usp=sharing
The Thirteen Colonies were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America during the 17th and 18th centuries. Grievances against the imperial government led the 13 colonies to begin uniting in 1774 and expelling British officials by 1775. Assembled at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, they appointed George Washington as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army to fight the American Revolutionary War. In 1776, Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence as the United States of America. Defeating invading British armies with French help, the Thirteen Colonies gained sovereignty with the Treaty of Paris in 1783.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen_Colonies
Virginia
British colony in North America, name appears on a map in 1587, named for Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen. The fem. proper name is from Latin Virginia, fem. of Virginius, earlier Verginius, probably related to Vergilius (see Virgilian). Related: Virginian.
also from 1587
https://www.etymonline.com/word/Virginia
New York
former New Amsterdam (city), New Netherlands (colony), renamed after British acquisition in 1664 in honor of the Duke of York and Albany (1633-1701), the future James II, who had an interest in the territory. See York. Related: New Yorker. Latinized Noveboracensian "of or pertaining to New York" (1890) contains the Medieval Latin name of York, England, Eboracum. New York minute "very short time" attested by 1976.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=new+york
Massachusetts
U.S. state; the word is plural, originally (1614) a name for the Algonquian native people who lived around the bay, from Algonquian Massachusett "at the large hill," in reference to Great Blue Hill, southwest of Boston. Related: Massachusettensian.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=massachusetts
Maryland
U.S. state, named for Henrietta Maria (1609-1669), wife of English King Charles I. Related: Marylander.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=maryland
Rhode Island
U.S. state, the region is traditionally said to have been named by Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano when he passed through in 1524, based on an imagined similarity between modern Block Island and the Greek Isle of Rhodes. More likely it is from Roodt Eylandt, the name Dutch explorer Adriaen Block gave to Block Island c. 1614, literally "red island," so called for the color of its cliffs. Under this theory, the name was altered by 17c. English settlers by folk-etymology influence of the Greek island name (see Rhodes) and then extended to the mainland part of the colony. By 1685 the island had been renamed for Block. The Rhode Island red domestic fowl was so called by 1896, for its plumage.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=rhode+island
Connecticut
U.S. state, originally the name of the river, said to be from Mohican (Algonquian) quinnitukqut "at the long tidal river," from *kwen- "long" + *-ehtekw "tidal river" + *-enk "place."
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=connecticut
"In 1623, English merchant John Mason received a land grant in New England and sent mariners to set up base camps for fishing and trading. He named the area New Hampshire after his home county of Hampshire, England."
https://www.history.com/topics/us-states/new-hampshire
Hampshire
reduced from Old English Hamtunscir; named for the city of Southampton, which originally was simply Hamtun. Norman scribes mangled the county name to Hauntunescire, later Hantescire, hence the abbrev. Hants.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=hampshire
The place name Hampton is of Old English origin and is common in England, particularly in the South of England and Central England. It can exist as a name in its own right or as a prefix or suffix. The name suggests a farm settlement, especially one where pastoral farmers keep livestock on flood-meadow pastures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_(place_name)
Delaware
U.S. state, river, and native tribe, all named for the bay, which was named for Baron (commonly "Lord") De la Warr (Thomas West, 1577-1618), first English colonial governor of Virginia. The family name is attested from 1201, from Delaware in Brasted, Kent, which is probably ultimately from de la werre "of the war" (a warrior), from Old French werre/guerre "war" (see war (n.)). Related: Delawarean.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=DELAWARE
Carolina
1663, North American colony named for King Charles II (the Latin form of the male proper name is Carolus). Earlier French colonists had called the region Caroline (1564) in honor of Charles IX, King of France, and a 1629 grant here by Charles I of England was named Carolana.
The name at first referred to modern South Carolina, but the tract originally included North Carolina and Georgia; North Carolina first was used 1691, in reference to settlements made from Virginia. The official division into north and south dates from 1710. It has been used generically in forming species names in botany and zoology from 1734. Related: Carolinian.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=carolina
Jersey
1580s as a type of knitted cloth; 1842 as a breed of cattle; both from Jersey, one of the Channel Islands. Its name is said to be a corruption of Latin Caesarea, the Roman name for the island (or another near it), influenced by Old English ey "island" (see island); but it is perhaps rather a Viking name (perhaps meaning "Geirr's island").
The meaning "woolen knitted close-fitting tunic," especially one worn during sporting events, is from 1845. In American English, short for New Jersey from 1758. Related: Jerseyman.
New Jersey
named 1664 by one of the proprietors, Sir George Carteret, for his home, the Channel island of Jersey. Jersey girl attested from 1770.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=jersey
Pennsylvania
American colony, later U.S. state, 1681, literally "Penn's Woods," a hybrid formed from the surname Penn (Welsh, literally "head") + Latin sylvania (see sylvan). Not named for William Penn, the proprietor, but, on suggestion of Charles II, for Penn's late father, Admiral William Penn (1621-1670), who had lent the king the money that was repaid to the son in the form of land for a Quaker settlement in America. The story goes that the younger Penn wanted to call it New Wales, but the king's secretary, a Welshman of orthodox religion, wouldn't hear of it. Pennsylvania Dutch (adj.) in reference to the German communities of the state, which retained their customs and language, is attested from 1824.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=pennsylvania
Georgia
the U.S. state was named 1732 as a colony for King George II of Great Britain. The Caucasian nation is so-called for St. George, who is its patron saint (his cult there may continue that of a pre-Christian deity with whom he later was identified), but the name in that place also is said to derive from Arabic or Persian Kurj, or Gurz (the form in the earliest sources, Russian Grusia), which is said to be a name of the native people, of unknown origin. In modern Georgia, the name of the country is Sakartvelo and the people's name is Kartveli. Georgia pine, long-leafed pine of the Southern U.S. states, is from 1796.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=georgia
Jorge is the Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name George. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced very differently in each of the two languages: Spanish [ˈxoɾxe]; Portuguese [ˈʒɔɾʒɨ].
It is derived from the Greek name Γεώργιος (Georgios) via Latin Georgius; the former is derived from γεωργός (georgos), meaning "farmer" or "earth-worker".[1]
The Latin form Georgius had been rarely given in Western Christendom since at least the 6th century. The popularity of the name however develops from around the 12th century, in Occitan in the form Jordi, and it becomes popular at European courts after the publication of the Golden Legend in the 1260s.
The West Iberian form Jorge is on record in Portugal as the name of Jorge de Lencastre, Duke of Coimbra (1481–1550).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge
Pope Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio) (Latin: Franciscus, Italian: Francesco, Spanish: Francisco; born on 17 December 1936) is the 266th[2][3] and current pope of the Roman Catholic Church. He was elected on 13 March 2013. He chose the name Francis to honor St. Francis of Assisi.[4][5][6][7]
Pope Francis is the first pope to speak to a session of the United States Congress. He spoke there during his visit to the United States on 24 September 2015.[26]
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Francis
Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer is sometimes called the 13th or forgotten constellation of the zodiac. That's because the sun passes in front of Ophiuchus from about November 30 to December 18 each year. And yet no one ever says they're born when the sun is in Ophiuchus.
Ophiuchus is a constellation – not a sign – of the zodiac.
What are astrological signs? The 12 signs of the tropical zodiac represent equally-sized, 30-degree divisions of the sky. That’s why, for example, the sun resides in front of each zodiacal sign for a precise interval, about a month. Meanwhile, the sun is in front of the constellations for varying amounts of time, for example, in front of the constellation Virgo for about 1 1/2 months and in front of constellation Scorpius for about a week.
What are astronomical constellations? The ancient stargazers picked out patterns among the stars, named them, and associated them with legends and myths. Early in the 20th century, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) agreed on official constellation borders. The constellations vary in size and have many different shapes. The constellations of the zodiac are those in which the sun – and moon and planets – all travel. For as long as anyone can remember, we’ve had 12 constellations of the zodiac. Their names are the same (approximately) as the 12 signs of the zodiac.
If include Ophiuchus – which also holds the sun within its borders for part of every year, too – there are 13 constellations of the zodiac.
https://earthsky.org/tonight/ophiuchus-highest-on-august-evenings-2/
Was the American Revolution a violation of Romans 13:1-7?
Answer
The American Revolutionary War was a pivotal event in world history, and the constitutional republic that followed has produced the freest, most productive society ever. No one can deny that most of the Founding Fathers were religious men or that the liberty they fought for has benefited millions of people, but was their revolt against England biblically justified? Specifically, was the American Revolution a violation of Romans 13:1-7?
During the years before the Revolutionary War, the issue of justified rebellion was widely debated, with good men on both sides of the issue. Not surprisingly, most English preachers, such as John Wesley, urged restraint and pacifism on the part of the colonists; while most Colonial preachers, such as John Witherspoon and Jonathan Mayhew, fanned the flames of revolution.
Before we weigh the actions of the colonists, we must take a look at the Scripture they struggled with. Here’s a verse-by-verse summary of Romans 13:1-7:
The passage starts with a clear-cut command to submit to “the governing authorities” (v1a). Immediately following the command is the reason for it: namely, authorities are God-ordained (v1b). Therefore, resisting earthly authority is the same as resisting God (v2). Rulers are a deterrent to evil in society (v3); in fact, a ruler is “God’s servant,” bringing retribution to the wrongdoer (v4). Christians should submit to human authority not only to avoid punishment but also to maintain a clear conscience before God (v5). Specifically, Christians should pay their taxes (v6) and pay the proper respect and honor to “God’s servants” (v7).
The commands in Romans 13 are quite broad, aimed at “everyone,” with no exceptions listed. In fact, when Paul wrote these words, Nero was on the throne. If Romans 13 applies to the cruel and capricious Nero, it applies to all kings. The early church followed the principles of Romans 13 even during the wicked and oppressive reigns of Claudius, Caligula, and Tacitus. No qualifications or “outs” are given in the passage. Paul does not say “be subject to the king UNLESS he is oppressive” or “you must obey all rulers EXCEPT usurpers.” The plain teaching of Romans 13 is that all governments in all places are to be honored and obeyed. Every ruler holds power by the sovereign will of God (Psalm 75:7; Daniel 2:21). New Testament examples of believers paying proper obedience and respect towards government authority include Luke 2:1-5; 20:22-25; and Acts 24:10 (see also 1 Peter 2:13-17).
This is not to say that God approves of everything governments do or that kings are always right. On the contrary, Scripture has many examples of kings being held to account by God (e.g., Daniel 4). Furthermore, Romans 13 does not teach that Christians must always obey the governing authorities, no matter what. The one exception to the general rule of obedience is when man’s laws are in direct conflict with the plainly revealed law of God. Examples of God’s people practicing civil disobedience include Peter and John defying the Sanhedrin (Acts 4:19; 5:29), the Hebrew midwives refusing to practice infanticide (Exodus 1:15-17), Daniel ignoring the Persian law concerning prayer (Daniel 6:10), and Daniel’s friends refusing to bow to the king’s image (Daniel 3:14-18).
So, as a general rule, we are to obey the government; the lone exception is when obeying man’s law would force us to directly disobey God’s law.
Now, what about Romans 13 as it pertains to the American Revolutionary War? Was the war justified? First, it is important to understand that many of those who supported the Revolutionary War were deeply religious men who felt that they were biblically justified in rebelling against England. Here are some of the reasons for their perspective:
1) The colonists saw themselves not as anti-government but as anti-tyranny. That is, they were not promoting anarchy or the casting off of all restraint. They believed Romans 13 taught honor for the institution of government, but not necessarily for the individuals who ruled government. Therefore, since they supported God’s institution of government, the colonists believed that their actions against a specific oppressive regime were not a violation of the general principle of Romans 13.
2) The colonists pointed out that it was the king of England himself who was in violation of Scripture. No king who behaved so wickedly, they said, could be considered “God’s servant.” Therefore, it was a Christian’s duty to resist him. As Mayhew said in 1750, “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”
3) The colonists saw the war as a defensive action, not as an offensive war. And it is true that, in 1775 and 1776, the Americans had presented the king with formal appeals for reconciliation. These peaceful pleas were met with armed military force and several violations of British Common Law and the English Bill of Rights. In 1770, the British fired upon unarmed citizens in the Boston Massacre. At Lexington, the command was “Don’t fire unless fired upon.” The colonists, therefore, saw themselves as defending themselves after the conflict had been initiated by the British.
4) The colonists read 1 Peter 2:13, “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority . . .,” and saw the phrase “for the Lord’s sake” as a condition for obedience. The reasoning ran thus: if the authority was unrighteous and passed unrighteous laws, then following them could not be a righteous thing. In other words, one cannot obey a wicked law “for the Lord’s sake.”
5) The colonists saw Hebrews 11 as justification for resisting tyrants. Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Jephthah are all listed as “heroes of faith,” and they were all involved in overthrowing oppressive governments.
It is safe to say that the American patriots who fought against England were fully convinced that they had biblical precedent and scriptural justification for their rebellion. Although their view of Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 is a faulty interpretation (there are no provisos concerning obedience in those passages), it was the popular preaching of the day. At the same time, the self-defense argument (number 3, above) is a convincing and substantial rationale for war.
Even if the American Revolution was a violation of Romans 13, we know that the patriots acted in good faith in the name of Christian freedom, and we know that, in the ensuing years, God has brought about much good from the freedom that was won as a result.
https://www.gotquestions.org/American-Revolution-Romans-13.html
Romans 13
1599 Geneva Bible
13 1 He willeth that we submit ourselves to Magistrates: 8 To love our neighbor: 13 To love uprightly, 14 and to put on Christ.
1 Let [a]every [b]soul be subject unto the higher [c]powers: [d]for there is no power but of God: and the powers that be, are [e]ordained of God.
2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist, shall receive to themselves condemnation.
3 [f]For Magistrates are not to be feared for good works, but for evil. [g]Wilt thou then be without fear of the power? do well: so shalt thou have praise of the same.
4 For he is the minister of God for thy wealth: [h]but if thou do evil, fear: for he beareth not the sword for nought: for he is the minister of God to [i]take vengeance on him that doeth evil.
5 [j]Wherefore ye must be subject, not because of wrath only, but [k]also for conscience sake.
6 [l]For, for this cause ye pay also tribute: for they are God’s ministers, applying themselves for the same thing.
7 Give to all men therefore their duty: tribute, to whom ye owe tribute: custom, to whom custom: fear, to whom [m]fear: honor, to whom ye owe [n]honor.
8 [o]Owe nothing to any man, but to love one another: [p]for he that loveth another, hath fulfilled the [q]Law.
9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet: and if there be any other commandment, it is [r]briefly comprehended in this saying, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
10 Love doeth not evil to his neighbor: therefore is love the fulfilling of the Law.
11 [s]And that, considering the season, that it is now time that we should arise from sleep: for now is our salvation nearer, than when we believed it.
12 The night is past, and the day is [t]at hand, let us therefore cast away the works [u]of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light,
13 So that we walk honestly, as in the day: not in gluttony, and drunkenness, neither in chambering and wantonness, nor in strife and envying.
14 But [v]put ye on the Lord JESUS CHRIST, and take no thought for the flesh, to fulfill the lust of it.
Footnotes
Romans 13:1 Now he showeth severally, what subjects owe to their Magistrates, to wit, obedience: From which he showeth that no man is free: and in such sort that it is not only due to the highest Magistrate himself, but also even to the basest, which hath any office under him.
Romans 13:1 Yea, though an Apostle, though an Evangelist, though a Prophet: Chrysostom. Therefore the tyranny of the Pope over all kingdoms must down to the ground.
Romans 13:1 A reason taken of the nature of the thing itself: For to what purpose are they placed in higher degree, but that the inferior should be subject unto them?
Romans 13:1 Another argument of great force: Because God is author of this order: so that such as are rebels ought to know, that they make war with God himself: wherefore they cannot but purchase to themselves great misery and calamity.
Romans 13:1 Be distributed: for some are greater, some smaller.
Romans 13:3 The third argument taken from the end wherefore they were made, which is most profitable: for that God by this means preserveth the good and bridleth the wicked: by which words the Magistrates themselves are put in mind of that duty which they owe to their subjects.
Romans 13:3 An excellent way to bear this yoke, not only without grief, but also with great profit.
Romans 13:4 God hath armed the Magistrate even with a revenging sword.
Romans 13:4 By whom God revengeth the wicked.
Romans 13:5 The conclusion: We must obey the magistrate, not only for fear of punishment, but much more because that (although the Magistrate have no power over the conscience of man, yet seeing he is God’s minister) he cannot be resisteth by any good conscience.
Romans 13:5 So far as lawfully we may: for if unlawful things be commanded us, we must answer as Peter teacheth us, It is better to obey God than men.
Romans 13:6 He reckoneth up the chiefest things wherein consisteth the obedience of subjects.
Romans 13:7 Obedience, and that from the heart.
Romans 13:7 Reverence, (which as reason is) we must give to the Magistrate.
Romans 13:8 He showeth how very few judgments need to be executed, to wit, if we so order our life, as no man may justly require anything of us, besides that only that we owe one to another, by the perpetual law of charity.
Romans 13:8 He commendeth charity, as an abridgement of the whole Law.
Romans 13:8 He hath not only done one commandment, but performed generally that which the Law commandeth.
Romans 13:9 For the whole Law commandeth nothing else, but that we love God and our neighbor. But seeing Paul speaketh here of the duties we owe one to another, we must restrain this word, Law to the second Table.
Romans 13:11 An application taken of the circumstance of the time: which also itself putteth us in mind of our duty, seeing that this remaineth after that the darkness of ignorance and wicked affections by the knowledge of God’s truth be driven out of us, that we order our life according to that certain and sure rule of all righteousness and honesty, being fully grounded upon the virtue of the Spirit of Christ.
Romans 13:12 In other places we are said to be in the light, but yet so, that it appeareth not as yet what we are, for as yet we see but as it were in the twilight.
Romans 13:12 That kind of life, which they lead, that flee the light.
Romans 13:14 To put on Christ, is to possess Christ, to have him in us, and us in him.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%2013&version=GNV
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